As part of its efforts to address the challenges of access to e-government platforms for all segments of the public, and optimally used them, The administration of Vietnam’s Thôa Thien-Ho Province cooperated with the United Nations Development Program in Vietnam, to design a new accessible website, Transcends large gaps in design, It is based on the needs and experiences of users, It provides better-performing and more comprehensive digital government services.
In a world where governments are racing to provide the best and easiest services through digital platforms and electronic portals, Vietnam has made great strides in the field of digital transformation, It achieved an important achievement when it moved from the list of medium-performing countries to the list of high-performing countries in the e-government development index, After advancing 10 places in the list of the United Nations report on the development of digital government, It ranked 89th out of 193 countries, and a region that ranked sixth in the Southeast Asian region, In the General Development Index, And fourth in the index of online services.
however Despite the increase in new government services provided online, and the high number of citizens using them, These achievements and plans continue to face the challenge of accessibility. The government saw it as a “real obstacle” to achieving Vietnam’s ambitious digital agenda.
and the Vietnamese province of Thôa Thien-ho, which occupies a leading position at the national level in terms of innovation, This challenge is not immune. Whereas this province, With one million citizens, Ranked first in the level of digital government development in the general development index of e-government in 2017, However, However, She revealed a number of challenges she faces, related to public access to better digital government services, and more comprehensive.
to find alternative solutions and formulas, The provincial government formed a research team that included experts from the United Nations Development Programme in Viet Nam (from the governance team, and from the accelerator laboratory), Along with experts from the Thwa Thein-Ho Centre for Government Administration, They all collaborated on a digital government transformation program focused on increasing access to government actions.
The research team set its sights on reimagining what a website might look like. and how to design it to integrate the perspectives of vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities, persons with visual impairments, Mothers from low-income households are poor.
To this end, The team conducted ethnographic research involving about 50 participants, Some of them are people with modest knowledge of technology, persons with visual impairments, and citizens of ethnic minorities. The team also monitored the behavior of users of the county online portal, He conducted in-depth interviews.
Taken together, these surveys have been able to shed light on certain aspects that are often neglected and unnoticed. Were it not for the soliciting the opinions of the different categories of users of e-governance services. While many Thwa Thin-Ho citizens appreciated the ease of applying for public services through the government portal and when navigating the portal, Some of them said, Especially those with low digital skills, They get stuck due to the complexity of the user interface, and that they are unable to apply for basic services, Such as birth certificate registration, and registration of permanent residence, and the issuance of health insurance cards.
Users with visual impairments were also able, In particular, who rely on text-to-speech technology, to reveal software lapses that confuse them, Makes apps read texts in a non-systematic way, Which harms their experience of using these apps.
The research team quickly found that the design for people with less access, It is the perfect way to adopt simple and accessible design options. He visually represented the results of his research, It produced maps of the participants’ paths and experiences during their interaction with the portal, He successfully launched a new online portal that transcends challenges and avoids lapses.
By redesigning broken features, the team was able to speed up the processing of three experimental administrative procedures. Reducing the time required for its implementation from two to five days, The process of “disability levels, re-determination and certification”, for example, It only takes 20 days instead of 25 days. The experiments also enabled the team to design an easily accessible website. Has the function of converting text to spoken speech, It provides people with visual impairments with an enhanced experience, and simplified interfaces, and a new voice command feature.
This project demonstrated that tailoring to the needs of the extreme user situation helps overcome obstacles that exceed the prevailing user needs, Which makes the website more accessible to everyone, It also showed that everyone benefits when the government designs its services taking into account the needs and experiences of all users. Especially marginalized groups.
In Vietnam, Digital transformation is a revolution that involves all people. As digital government transformation is still an emerging field, The creation of user-centered inclusive methodologies, Like the case in Thua Thin-Ho Province, It reveals a promising path for governments around the world to embark on effective digital transformation.
References:
https://thuathienhue.gov.vn/en-us/Home/Detail/tid/Thua-Thien-Hue-province-ranks-first-in-province-level-digital-government/newsid/82D17FDE-D47D-4285-BC8B-A91800E6B26E/cid/A188E73D-A1A6-4843-A990-C4E40BC3B182https://www.itu.int/hub/2020/10/digital-government-at-the-heart-of-vietnams-national-strategy/
