Case Study: GDS

Zeyang Zheng
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

(Government Digital Service)

For the portfolio version please click here.

Background

During my second year at Goldsmiths Design, I had the opportunity to collaborate with GDS.

GDS is part of the cabinet office, their goal is to digitally transform the way the government operates to improve the quality of the services the government provides. For this project, I have been briefed by a representative of GDS.

We were a team of four designers, I was responsible for the idealization and design part.

Research & Identification of the Problem

We went to Covent Garden to interview people

We began by interviewing people on the street, asking them about their experience when they interact with the government.

From the interviews, we found out that people rarely have interactions with the government. For example, getting a national insurance number or getting a tax refund during tax season, and most of these activities are done through the phone.

Some of the people we have interviewed

We presented this discovery with GDS, they agreed and confirmed that our government could spend less money on hiring third-party call centres each year.

Therefore, cutting government spending on call centres becomes our goal.

We interviewed more people, this time we focused our questions around their calling experiences. There are a few key points we concluded during the interviews:

“Long waiting time.”

“It’s a long-winded process, I’m always worried my line will cut off accidentally”

“Sometimes it’s hard to understand their accent”

Ideation & Inspirations

Often there will be classical music play in the background while the caller is waiting for someone to pick up the call, which can be frustrating for people who do not like the music. Hence, it will be better if the caller can choose the genre of music.

The caller usually spends a long time trying to spell out their name and home address to confirm their identity. It can be particularly challenging for people whom have accents. This could be potentially resolved by knowing the caller’s identity in advance.

What if there is a place to document the key information for the caller to have during all the phone calls? Why can’t the third-party call centre send a message with all the details of the call after the call is ended?

Image from Google

QR code is already widely used in our daily life, software like WeChat and YoYo allow users to make payments by scanning these codes. Can it facilitate the identification process?

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Userflow

Prototype

Following GDS’s design guideline, we have created a mock-up video to demonstrate our idea.

In this mock-up, we propose the login feature for GOV.UK website. Users can quickly update their personal information online. More importantly, users can choose to call for assistance by scanning a unique QR code which is automatically generated after each time they log in. The call centre will receive their personal information before being connected to the user; no more spelling out names letter by letter, saving caller’s time and cutting down the duration of each call, consequently reducing government spending on third-party call centres.

Feedback

“I love this design, It was so frustrating when I called them to book my NIN appointment, I waited for 20 mins.”

“I didn’t understand the phone operator last time, I had to hangup and try to talk to a different operator”

Zeyang Zheng

UX

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