Featured Project

Absher

Absher (أبشر‎ meaning “good news” or “it’s done”) is a multi-channel platform for over 160 government services including renewing passports and driver’s licenses, receiving and paying speeding tickets, applying for Hajj permits, and making appointments, when needed.

Background

In 2012, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior (MOI) launched an “e-government” digital transformation initiative to move processing of services for over a dozen government agencies from paper to electronic channels.

Goals

Improve services turnaround time

Expand citizen and resident access to services

Reduce costs associated with paper processing

Improve government communications

Team and Responsibilities

Team Makeup

3 product owners
2 Product Managers
3 Business Analysts
1 Creative Director (me)
2 Experience Designers
20 developers

My Responsibilities

Managed a team local and remote designers
Planned and conducted contextual inquiries across multiple government agencies
Led design for a bilingual, multi-channel (mobile, web, and kiosk) services platform
Facilitated usability testing sessions

U

User Research

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Information Architecture

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Multi-Channel

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Strategy

Challenges

Guaranteed Access

Making government services available on your phone can sound like a convenient dream for some, but for people with no personal devices, it would mean severing access to essential services. Absher much provide easier and more convenient access to everyone in the country.

Accessibility

There are many challenges in making a product or service with an audience of “the entire country” including, but not limited to supporting:

The spectrum of tech literacy
Multiple languages, both the official language and that of millions of expatriates
A range of visual, physical, and other disabilities
Inconsistent internet connectivity in rural villages

Security

To eliminate the need for people to appear in person with identifying documentation, we needed smart ways to verify the user’s identity.

Approach

User Research

I planned and facilitated user research which included stakeholder interviews, customer interviews, and contextual inquiries.

To create a shared understanding of the problems to be addressed, I created storyboards to illustrate common scenarios uncovered through research.

A storyboard used to communicate the research findings from user interviews and contextual inquiries.

Multi-Channel Solution

To fully support the range of users, we provided a multi-channel solution with interfaces for the web, mobile, and kiosks placed in malls and airports.

During discovery, it was uncovered that expatriates leaving the country (final exit) often get informed at the airport that they have pending require paperwork to process. Even those with personal cell phones do not have them at this time because they’ve turned off their mobile service in preparation to exit.

Kiosks proved to be key in addressing final exits, individuals without personal devices, and for establishing identity with embedded fingerprint scanners for initial account creation.