Youth Service
Youth Service Ratonga Taiohi is a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) initiative that helps Aotearoa New Zealand’s youth gain independence and confidence by connecting them to the support and services they’re entitled to, including the youth benefit.
Springload
Design / UX / Branding
Team –
Dan Newman / Creative Direction
Chris Barneau / Design Direction
Zak Brown / Brand design
Gisela de la Villa / Integration & back-end
In collaboration with MoD & Wrestler (video production)
Colourful and usable, with a human-centred approach
We applied our human-centred approach to evolve the brand, making the site appealing, useful, and usable for both the young people and the service providers using it. And we did all this during 2020’s nationwide lockdown!
Evolving the brand
We wanted to keep the essence of the brand while updating it to feel empowering and professional to young people on a journey to figuring out the next step in their lives.
We pared the logo down to a single ‘Y’ that retains the original bubble-like shape. The logo’s original colours now theme different sections of the site — like pink for mental health and orange for housing. The colours give the site an optimistic, upbeat feel.
Supporting Youth Service coaches to do user testing
The project had a tight timeframe and budget, and a lot of it was done during 2020’s nationwide lockdown. We needed to do user testing with young people who use the site, but we didn’t have time to develop the rapport needed for them to trust us and give honest insights. So we trained Youth Service coaches, who already work directly with the young people, to carry out user testing across the country.
Supporting MSD to do the user testing themselves was a great way to fast-track it, while still getting quality insights.
