Project ARCHWAY | Archives NZ
Archives New Zealand is the custodian of over 75km of government records, which are a significant part of our cultural heritage. The records date back to 1840 and include the Treaty of Waitangi and the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition.
The Project:
A diverse group, which includes family historians, government officials, legal researchers, and academics, use the records, but the search tools available to them have been largely paper-based and cumbersome to use.
The tools access a huge quantity of complex data about the records and the government agencies that created them. Managing this data was increasingly unsustainable in a manual system and the decision to automate this core system was supported by Government. This project is Archives New Zealand’s biggest undertaking this decade.
With the development of the system well underway, a key issue for the success of the project was designing a first-rate search interface for members of the public. This required a sophisticated web-based solution that could exploit the complexity and richness of the data and tap into the Archives’ methodologies and expertise which underpin it. The challenge for the Provoke team was to make this appear simple and instinctive.
The end result, delivered by Provoke Solutions is an interface design that features multiple search strategies, tailored to the needs and experience of users. Researchers can choose a pathway they are comfortable with and, via intelligent screen presentations, navigate quickly and intuitively to the information they want.
What the Client said...
Provoke impressed us as a professional young company who really knew what they were doing with usability design and web-enabled applications. Their previous work demonstrated this and we are delighted with the results they have achieved for us.
Provoke worked closely with key staff and were very quick to grasp the conceptual models that underpin Archives’ systems, and to understand the diverse needs and expertise of our users. Provoke brought great information systems design skills and excellent end-user empathy to the table. This mix was critical to achieving a unique user interface – one which we believe is world class. The final design is crisp, clear-cut and elegant, and will appeal to both first-time and expert users.
The project was well managed and the Provoke team were a pleasure to work with – talented, professional, and super-helpful. With them, we achieved an outstanding result in a very short space of time.
Janine Delaney
Head Archivist Context Control (Project Owner), Archives NZ
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