Case study: Clarifying complex financial information for millions of Australians

How plain English content design helped a national financial regulator cut content volume by 49% while meeting the highest accessibility standard.
Client: Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)
Role: Content Designer

Overview

Moneysmart is one of Australia's most trusted government resources – a free, independent source of financial guidance used by millions of people. ASIC was refreshing the site's brand and strategy and restructuring content around key life stages: saving, buying a home, retiring, and supporting people under financial stress.

ASIC’s objectives for the new Moneysmart website were to:

  • Encourage informed use of financial products and services.
  • Provide specialist support for priority audiences.
  • Provide simple steps for the 1 in 3 people who feel stressed and overwhelmed by money.
  • Encourage saving.
  • Increase retirement preparedness.

The brief: clarify complex financial concepts, meet ASIC's new voice and tone guidelines, and hit WCAG 2.0 AAA accessibility standards – a notably high bar few government sites attempt.

As one of four content designers, I partnered with an ASIC economist and owned the development of the budgeting and saving section of the new website.

Challenge

User research had already surfaced the core problem: existing content was too complex and too long, and it wasn't meeting user needs. ASIC identified four distinct audience segments, ranging from confident, financially literate users to people who felt overwhelmed and were navigating a difficult moment.

Working with ASIC – a national financial regulator – meant navigating serious compliance, risk mitigation and legal guardrails. Our challenge was to clarify complex financial information and concepts, and write clear, goal-oriented, accessible and inclusive content in plain English.

Our project team of nine – four content designers, four subject-matter experts, and a project manager – needed to rewrite and create around 200 web pages without the content fragmenting into different four different voices.

Approach 

Evidence-based approach. Using the existing ASIC user research, site analytics and strategies, I worked with the project team to meticulously plan each topic. I identified user stories based on the key audience segments, content objectives, business and user information priorities, keywords and success measures. I documented this planning in our online content creation software. Every content decision was based on evidence rather than opinion.

Pair-writing with subject-matter experts. I worked closely with an ASIC economist throughout the project, pairing content design with financial expertise at the page level. This meant every piece of content was shaped and fact-checked at the drafting stage by someone who deeply understood the subject matter.

Shared content types and templates. With four content designers writing in parallel, consistency was a real risk. I worked from a shared style guide and content types built around message intent – engage, inform, motivate, warn – so tone and structure stayed consistent across the site.

Regular content critiques. The team held recurring sessions to align on terminology and approach, work through problems together, and refine content as a group. It was next-level collaboration and the perfect climate for sharing expertise and building internal content capability.

Moderated user testing. We tested content with real users representing each of the four audience segments to assess comprehension, tone, structure, and whether people could actually complete the task the content was written for. The testing was an opportunity to gather valuable insight, qualitative data and evidence to improve the content.

Rigorous quality assurance. Every page was forensically checked for readability and WCAG 2.0 AAA compliance before it went to ASIC for sign-off.

Deliverables

  • ~200 rewritten and newly written web pages
  • Content types and templates aligned to message intent
  • Documented style and terminology guidelines
  • Moderated content testing sessions with real users

Results

  • 49% reduction in content volume – less for stressed or time-poor users to process, without losing substance.
  • Full WCAG 2.0 AAA compliance, one of the highest accessibility bars in web content.
  • Testing confirmed the content was clear, logically structured, and on-brand, with users able to identify next steps.
  • The project won the Australian Government Digital Award for Outstanding Digital Methodology or Approach.
  • Improved content design capability, as reported by the ASIC team.

Key learnings

Pairing directly with a subject-matter expert – rather than writing first and fact-checking later – produced faster, more accurate content than a traditional review cycle. It also meant I was building financial literacy alongside content skill, which shaped how I approached every regulated-content project afterward.

Working as one of four content designers on a single site also taught me how much consistency depends on shared systems, not shared instinct. Content types and regular critiques did more to keep 200 pages coherent than individual skill ever could have alone.

This project came early in my career, and it set the standard I've carried into every content project since: evidence over opinion, and accessibility as a baseline requirement, not an afterthought.

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