Where does my feedback go?
Admit it. When you hear the Government asking for feedback (yet again) on their products and services, you go, “surely my feedback will go nowhere!”. We know sometimes it feels like your feedback disappears into a black hole, never to be seen or heard from again.
Over at GovTech, we want to be transparent with how gathered feedback actually helps improve our digital services. We want to focus on user-centricity (in this case, citizen-centricity), in order to build and deliver meaningful products that meet your needs. This is where our work with the Tech Kaki community comes in.
What is Tech Kaki?
Two years ago, we started an online community, Tech Kaki, on Facebook. This community was envisioned as a platform to better engage citizens and give them a sneak peek into GovTech’s newest and latest developments. Fundamentally, we want to foster conversations about using tech in our everyday lives. More importantly, we want to have a two-way dialogue with citizens, where ideas are freely shared to improve upcoming products and services. We also create bi-monthly surveys and polls on our Facebook page to gather quick feedback.
Tapping into this online community, we have also organised a few Tech Kaki “offline” events, where citizens are invited to have casual discussions over dinner.
From these events alone, we have garnered valuable feedback from over 200 citizens, aged 25–62, from all walks of life.
We welcome everyone to join us at our Tech Kaki events and be part of our Smart Nation journey, where we work together to co-create better public services.
We conducted two Tech Kaki sessions to invite citizens to try out SingPass Mobile. The first session was held in May 2018, when SingPass Mobile was still in beta, and the second session was in April 2019, before we launched two new features on the app.
For both sessions, we took to the floor to help participants set the test app up, importantly so they could try SingPass Mobile on their own smartphones. Our facilitators were fielding questions throughout while keenly observing participant reactions and body language for non-verbal cues.
Some of the feedback we got from our first session were:
- In-app shortcuts to quickly access their favourite digital services
- The ability to view their transaction histories or track account activities
Just last month, we built on these feedback and launched two new features — MyInfo Profile and Login Shortcuts.
Now, with SingPass Mobile, you can view your personal information (such as passport expiry date, CPF balance, and driver’s licence details) all at once. You can also access popular digital services from the app. This means you no longer have to search for a service or type out long URLs!
During the recent Tech Kaki meetup session on SingPass Mobile, where these features were brought out ahead of the public release, most participants found it useful to have all their information consolidated in one app. Some shared that we should consider adding shortcuts for IRAS and other health-related digital services.
It was merely a 1.5-hour session, but the suggestions and queries came fast and furious! We are glad that everyone enjoyed the meetup.
More importantly, we were glad that our participants attended the session with a shared mindset of improving the app for would-be users.
Our Tech Kakis came to an overall consensus: The app was user-friendly and simple to use. However, we observed that our senior Kakis needed more time to familiarise themselves with the new features. Some were also unsure how they could proceed and it was at times unclear which buttons were to be tapped on.
One thing is for sure. Our work’s not done yet, and we take into consideration small observations like that for our ongoing digital inclusion efforts.
If you would like to be a part of the Tech Kaki community, do follow us on Facebook.com/TechKaki or get in touch with us at community@tech.gov.sg. We’d love to get some discussions going!
