State.app is a 2017 concept for an app for citizens of a digitalised state. I worked on it during 2 days, actually using just 1 workday's worth of time.
Background
When applying to join my next employer Pipedrive, I was tasked to find a problem to solve from a domestic newspaper and this article in Postimees caught my eye: "Study: the state has no idea of the complexity of its services"
The thought process
The article mentioned above talked about how the Estonian state doesn't have an understanding of the usefulness and complexity of its services. New state services were being developed assuming they'd reduce administrative burden but it was never measured. They elaborated about having to ask members of the public for feedback.
Then there were my own two recent experiences with vehicles. Two years back I was pulled over by the police because my mother's car didn't have a valid MOT (technical inspection), and neither me or my mother had no idea about it. And then a month ago I was just randomly checking my own car's data at the Transport Authority's website and discovered that the car didn't have insurance for already 6 months. I had no clue about that and was shocked that I was driving around like this for half a year.
There was also this fraud scheme discovered recently where some medical services and goods companies presented bloated invoices to the Health Fund and people were
From there, my thoughts moved on to the story of the Health Insurance Fund tax fraud, which was relevant about a month ago, where companies selling medical services and goods submitted invoices to the Health Insurance Fund that were higher than the actual cost. The Health Insurance Fund then asked people to check their digital history to see if the invoices submitted by the medical company to the Health Insurance Fund matched what people paid, in order to track down fraud.
I kind of combined all these needs together and figured that Estonian citizens deserve a new interface to interact with their state (and vice versa). The interface would replace or complement all the different portals like eesti.ee, digilugu.ee, maanteeamet.ee etc.
Hypotheses validation
As a beginner web designer for small businesses with no actual Product Design experience, I didn't have much experience in validating my hypotheses or solutions back in 2017.
I did however send out (quite a naive) survey to confirm my gut feeling that a new app-based interface would be something that people would be interested in.
I got 25 replies to the survey where I asked questions like:
▪ How often do you use the state portal eesti.ee?
▪ What services have you used on the state portal?
▪ Which services are the most necessary for you in the state portal or are you using more often
▪ What other state e-services would you like to see on the state portal?
▪ If the Estonian state had its own smart application, would it make your communication with the state easier?
▪ Which services in the country's app would you use the most/most often?
▪ Could the app also send notifications in case of problems (expiration of documents / insurances, etc.)?
▪ If the country conducted polls using a smart app, would you participate?
▪ What services have you used on the state portal?
▪ Which services are the most necessary for you in the state portal or are you using more often
▪ What other state e-services would you like to see on the state portal?
▪ If the Estonian state had its own smart application, would it make your communication with the state easier?
▪ Which services in the country's app would you use the most/most often?
▪ Could the app also send notifications in case of problems (expiration of documents / insurances, etc.)?
▪ If the country conducted polls using a smart app, would you participate?
The results were mostly reassuring so I moved forward with creating the solution.
Some graphs right here to break the wall of text hehe.
Some graphs right here to break the wall of text hehe.
See the poll results here (in Estonian).
The gist of the solution
The solution an app for the people of a digitalised state where citizens could carry out all common actions and the state could send notifications and also ask for feedback to its services.
An individual has their own necessities that need to be done from time to time:
▪ check health insurance validity;
▪ check the validity of the vehicle's traffic insurance;
▪ order documents;
▪ e-voting;
▪ read their official Estonian e-mail.
The entrepreneur persona has the following needs to see:
▪ notifications of tax due date;
▪ read their official Estonian e-mail.
▪ start a new company (yes, not science fiction in e-Estonia).
▪ check health insurance validity;
▪ check the validity of the vehicle's traffic insurance;
▪ order documents;
▪ e-voting;
▪ read their official Estonian e-mail.
The entrepreneur persona has the following needs to see:
▪ notifications of tax due date;
▪ read their official Estonian e-mail.
▪ start a new company (yes, not science fiction in e-Estonia).
The app could be a good helper for the e-state citizen, enabling convenient access to data and services. This app would probably be quite popular and thus give the state the opportunity to prompt surveys to people. Everyone in Estonia has their own national e-mail, but many have not linked it to their actual everyday e-mail addresses. If the national e-mail inbox was integrated with the app, there would be a greater chance that it would be read.
I did realise from the beginning that it was a far-fetched solution to the problem stated in the newspaper article. At the same time I was keen to design a fresh interface, try out designing for iOS for the first time, and overall have something visual and presentable.
Prototype walkthrough
Flows covered: logging in, ordering a new document, seeing vehicle insurance validity, paying overdue tax for your company.
Some screenshots
Tools used
I used Google Forms to survey the public about their struggles in interacting with the state. I used iOS Human Interface Guidelines to inform the semi-native design of the app and the then-fresh digital identity language for Estonia for the non-native visuals. I used Sketch to put it all together and InVision to prototype it.