Organising the Singpass app Inbox for close to 4 million users (Part 1 — UX Research)
The inbox feature on the Singpass app started with the basic purpose of housing functional messages like alerts of service logins and profile retrievals.
As digital services and functions within government agencies continue to grow, the need for more secure channels of official communication grew along with it — especially in the evolving landscape of scams and misinformation.
This means that the role and function of the Singpass app Inbox has to evolve to house a wider variety of messages, such as passport applications, vaccine certificates, and updates to various services like Digital IC acceptance at government counters.
We set out to design a better inbox experience, starting with the groundwork of stakeholder workshops and qualitative user studies. This laid a solid, user-centric foundation for the design work to progress. Here’s a peak into some of the things we did 👀.
1. Establishing a common mental model
From our initial workshops with internal stakeholders, we aligned on the need to categorise messages for better organisation and easier retrieval of messages.
We came up with three preliminary categories (Reminders, Transactions, Information) based on their functional attributes and jobs-to-be-done — an approach to developing products based on understanding both the customer’s specific goals and the thought processes that would lead the user to select the product to complete a specific task.
Each category featured two sub-categories for more granular categorisation and user control. For example, Transactional messages were divided into Consent required and General transactions.
However, we soon learnt through a qualitative study with ten Singpass app users that this granularity was not only more complicated than needed, but it also did not provide additional value for users that would enhance their experience.
In our study, participants did an open card sorting activity, where they sorted a stack of 20 cards with a different Inbox message on each, and placed them into categories that made the most sense to them.
Two distinct mental models emerged. Messages were either grouped by action/things to do or by topic.
- By action/things to do — Participants who communicated this mental model were task-focused and saw the Inbox as a place where they receive alerts on things they need to do or take note of.
- By topic — Participants who communicated this mental model were focused on how the messages related to them personally and the various aspects of their lives.
As we further synthesised the hypothesis, we uncovered three topics that participants consistently expressed as important— money, legality, and account security. These were important due to their need to take action or do something.
This corresponded with the mental model of Action/things to do, revealing that organising messages this way would be more broadly understood across our user base.
We settled on using the mental model of Action/things to do. This model was:
- Universal & easy for users to understand
- Clear & distinct for government agencies and the Inbox team to label current and future messages
- Objective & independent of one’s life stage or lifestyle (compared with the mental model of By topic)
Key phrases and terms that participants used were grouped and clustered together, eventually leading us to our final three category names: For Action, Transactions, News & Info.
These three categories aligned with the mental model participants expressed while comfortably covering the variety of messages users will receive.
2. Understanding what senders and recipients prioritise
In addition to the card sorting activity, we also asked participants to arrange their categories according to which they would like to see first, and which they would like to see last.
We learnt more about our users’ attitudes towards receiving messages on the Singpass app and how government agencies can align their messages towards what users prioritise.
This activity revealed that messages with a time-bound action were viewed as the highest priority. This was driven by the fear of potential fines or legal implications if these messages were missed or not promptly followed up.
Additionally, they expressed interest in receiving push notifications or reminders through other channels (i.e. emails, SMSes, letters) on these messages.
“If I miss these messages (with a time-bound action), something might ‘go wrong’. Especially if the due dates are near, there’s urgency and I want it to be at my notification centre.”
— Participant from user study
News and announcements that are already widely available on other public channels, e.g. TV or news bulletins, were the lowest priority. These messages were considered redundant and irrelevant as they did not align with their expectations of the Singpass app experience.
Through this learning, we arranged the order of the category pills in the Inbox based on their perceived priority. It also helped us define the controls in our notification settings, ensuring that users received notifications on important messages, and are able to opt-out of those they did not prioritise.
3. Uncovering and understanding the deeper user pain points
Beyond the design of the Inbox, there were deeper insights that we uncovered around the messages themselves.
Participants expressed confusion and frustration over news appearing in their Inbox as these messages did not meet their expectations of the services that Singpass provides.
They expected messages to be personalised and relevant to the Singpass service, such as messages with follow-up actions they can take using Singpass.
Insights like these enabled us to create recommendations to the various stakeholders and policy-making teams on ways to make messages more relevant and delightful for users to receive. This improves the read rates and information retention in users, meeting the objectives of these messages sent by government agencies.
We built on these insights, experimenting with ideas like a decision tree to help senders navigate the new Inbox categories.
These were some of the larger wins this study provided us, giving us a more holistic understanding of the ecosystem surrounding the Singpass app Inbox and where we can use design to create a positive impact for users and government agencies alike.
Curious about how we translated these findings into our Inbox design? Read Part 2 (UX Design) and Part 3 (Engineering)!
Team credits: Colette Li (UX research), Yurong Zheng (UX design), Kenneth Tay (UX design), Li Soon (Product Manager)
