Digital Birth Certificate - NSW Department of Customer Service
Context
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What is the approach when designing a national product that has to work for all states and territories in Australia?
How to design for the customer but also for the businesses, government agencies and international organisations so that the digital birth certificate can be universally accepted as a proof of identity?
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Category:
From Research Findings document
From Research Findings document
Research, Service Design, Product Design
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About this project and my role:
NSW is currently leading the digital government initiatives and one of them is the National Digital Birth Certificate. The pilot launch will be in NSW end of 2022 with a small cohort of one of the key government agencies. Other states will follow and plug into the DBC system starting from 2023.
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My role was to lead and contribute to the research and design of the digital birth certificate within a team of a Service Designer, a Product Designer, a Product Owner and a Solution Architect.
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The Goal
The goal was to create a digital birth certificate that is secure, easy to use and universally accepted which can replace the paper birth certificate in the future.
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From Research Findings document
From Research Findings document
Challenges and Approach
My approach was to start with a research plan and define the key actions and deliverables for the discovery and solution design phases. I have suggested a research plan to be done from three different lenses: Customer, Stakeholders, Technology.
The main challenge was to fit the discovery in the three months that we were given and find availabilities with key government organisations.
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We have interacted with some key government agencies multiple times throughout the discovery phase to understand their requirements, to run them through possible solution options and to ensure that the product was meeting their criteria and the customer's expectation.
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In parallel, we conducted customers interviews, published an online survey on Service NSW website which has generated over 1500 participants and 48% engagement rate. This qualitative data has validated our assumptions and we invested further in privacy by design and security.
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After mapping out the current state journey maps with key stakeholders and running multiple workshops with them, I came up with a list of short term and long term initiatives to identity the MVP features and implement the rest during product iteration cycles. I suggested a quick release of the first prototype after 3 rounds of user testing to respect our timeframes and meet the expectations of the Minister.
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The success of the first prototype has secured government funding for the project and we have onboarded a vendor to build the digital birth certificate.
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During the build phase I have continued engaging with key government agencies such as Services Australia, Department of Education, Australian Passport Office to go through further product iterations and plan the pilot release.
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From Research Findings document
From Research Findings document
Workflows for Passport Office to accept the new digital birth certificate
Current state journey map when applying for a new passport with paper birth certificate
Mockups of an API integrated solution for Passport Office
From Research Findings document
From Research Findings document
Applying for a Digital Birth Certificate Value Stream Map
Product iterations for after MVP
Mockups for uploading digital birth certificate on a Medicare webform
Mockups for uploading digital birth certificate on a Medicare webform
Enrolling a child to a public school online by adding their DBC on the online form
Digital Birth Certificate Service Bluprint - From online application to onboarding and sharing of the DBC
Successful Outcomes
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The success of the first prototype secured further government funding for the project to move into Alpha and Beta phases.
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The digital birth certificate has become a hot topic in media often endorsed by the Minister of Customer Service and Digital Government.
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Many key government agencies such as Passports, Services Australia, Department of Education were very positive about adapting their systems and processes to cater the digital birth certificate.
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The project is one of its kind, Australia will be the first country to offer a digital birth certificate to its citizens.
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In the media:
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/thoughtworks-to-build-out-australias-digital-birth-certificate-579924
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