NSW Planning

Background

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment, responsible for the legislation on complex planning and zoning rules around building a new house or commercial development, was seeking to move all of its planning information online as part of its ‘ePlanning project’. Bienalto was engaged to bring the project’s first tool to life – Interactive Buildings for exempt development.

My role and activities

• Gordon played the dual role of project manager and lead user experience designer on the first 2 releases of Interactive Buildings.
  • As project manager, Gordon was responsible for monitoring schedule and budget; arranging communication between internal staff, the client and third party developers; and analysing risks, executing mitigation strategies where necessary.
  • As lead user experience designer, Gordon guided junior UX team members to design the user journeys and wireframes.

Approach and solution

• As the complex rules and regulations have been buried in a vast amount of paperwork, Gordon worked collaboratively with key Department stakeholders to bring all the exempt development planning information onto a single online platform which:
  • Users can quickly and easily find what they are looking for;
  • Planning codes, rules and regulations are explained in simple dot-points and interactive 3D diagrams;
  • Is easy for staff to maintain the codes and rules so they are always up-to-date.
• On the technology side, the Interactive Buildings tool would need to cover development regulations for over 100 building elements across residential, commercial and industrial property types.
  • Gordon co-led the direction of the technology driving the project, including:
    • Cutting edge HTML5 web technologies, including the three.js Javascript 3D library and WebGL;
    • Low-polygon modeling for building elements;
    • Drupal 7 content management system.
  • These technologies were chosen to ensure that the tool remained light-weight and nimble – ideal for fast loading, viewing across all web and tablet browsers, and simple content management.

Results

With the initial release of Interactive Buildings 1.0, NSW Planning staff took Interactive Buildings on a roadshow tour with numerous councils and the general public. The project was positively received by the public, and calls have been reduced to the call-centre.