UX New Zealand 2013

The State Services Commission is working on an initiative called Better Public Services which has 10 result areas. Result 10, owned by the Department of Internal Affairs, aims to achieve 70% of “New Zealanders’ most common transactions with Government being completed in a digital environment” by 2017.

It is probably possible to reach 70% utilisation just by giving people no other option but to complete transactions online. But important questions remain:

• What services and transaction to people want to complete online?
• What is the actual experience for users?
• Are they well designed?
• Can people actually access them?

So Optimal Experience decided to put Government online services under the UX microscope. We’ve conducted an in-depth study of Government online services, focusing on the user experience – aiming to answer each of the questions above. We used a five-pronged research approach with the aim to give key Government online services a “user experience score” that combine evaluation of five areas of user experience:

• Service desirability (do people actually want this?)
• Observed user experience
• Interaction design evaluation
• Accessibility
• Responsive/mobile design of the service

Examples of Government online services evaluated include: renewing driver’s license (NZTA), filing for a charitable donation tax refund (IRD), renewing an adult passport (DIA), checking individual education history (NZQA) and others.

Michael’s presentation will cover the background of Result 10 and Government online services, walk through our research methodology, and reveal the finding and insights from our study.