Sydney Water Case Study

01 / Problem

A critical service, buried in friction. And a deadline that wouldn't move.

Tap in handles high-stakes tasks: building plan approvals, service and wastewater diagrams, water connections and disconnections. Customers, consultants, and delivery partners came to it needing to get something specific done, and unclear steps, missing context, or no visibility into progress turned that into friction at every stage.

Sydney Water needed a faster, more reliable self-service model, with customer experience tracked directly through net promoter score. The interface also had to hold up across responsive channels without losing status, progress, or confidence along the way.

The timeline wasn't flexible either. The contract for the outgoing platform was expiring, with no extension on the table, so the replacement had to be live before that system was switched off, not after.

Approvals, diagrams, and service requests scattered across a fragmented front door.
No visibility into usage or service progress once a request was submitted.
Public portal and backend case lifecycle were out of sync with each other.
The platform running it all was due to be decommissioned, with no extension on the table.

Customer portal and internal processing tools, one deadline. No room to slip.

02 / My role

Led product design for the customer-facing platform, while overseeing UX best practices across the back-of-house system's implementation.

I led the customer journey mapping and usability design for the customer-facing platform, from service selection through application all the way to payment and certificate issuance: turning a technically complex service into something people could understand, complete, and trust. That meant simplifying forms, clarifying language, shaping interaction patterns, and keeping the interface honest to what the case-management engine behind it could actually deliver.

Customer-facing stream

Responsive layouts, clearer service selection, accessible forms, and feedback states for approvals and requests.

Internal system stream

TIBCO BusinessWorks for integration, ActiveMatrix BPM for case management: the operational truth the interface could never contradict.

Every decision was grounded in UX best practices and real user research, not assumption, all while balancing an aggressive timeline.

Tap in wireframes mapping the submission journey across services, plan selection, and application status screens

03 / The solution

A redesigned customer-facing portal, delivered alongside a new back-of-house case management system.

An entire portal built around what people actually need to get done, matched by a case management system engineered to keep pace with it: two systems built to work as one, not bolted together after the fact.

For customers, that means less guesswork: they know exactly what they're applying for, move through each step with confidence, make payments, and track progress without needing to call. For the business, it means a scalable portal built from reusable components, ready to show stakeholders, refine fast, and extend to new services without rebuilding from scratch.

Self-service entryAccessible patternsReusable componentsVisible progress

Customer using the redesigned Sydney Water portal on a tablet — SolutionThe redesigned portal in use, guiding customers through each step with confidence.

The next question was whether it solved the problem that actually mattered to the business.

04 / Outcomes

An entire new customer experience. From self-service portal to internal application processing.

Sydney Water's contract with its outgoing provider was expiring with no extension on the table. The new platform, customer-facing front end and TIBCO-powered back end case processing, had to be built in parallel and live in nine weeks, or the business would have no system at all.

It shipped on time, fully operational: customers could self-serve approvals, diagrams, and connection requests, easing pressure on inbound call volume.

+127NPS points

From −38 to +89, after the new experience and process model launched.

9weeks

Design through delivery for the new self-service offering and interface.

5steps

To complete a case from start to finish.