Vic Gov QR code Service
Client
Department of Premier and Cabinet
Timeline
~12-14 weeks including pilot at 4-6 weeks mark
Role
UX / Product Design (50%), User Research (30%), Facilitation and collaboration (30%)
Regular collaborators
Product Manager, Salesforce delivery team, Design Systems UI designer.
Other Stakeholders
Department of Health, Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions and Service Victoria app team
Delivered
User experience design and delivery of a free service that can be accessed by any venue owner as a minimum viable product out in market in 12 weeks.
A set of findings using co-design and research through a research piece, to inform the roadmap of features.
Background
In 2020, Melbourne and VIC state went into an extended lockdown for over 12 weeks affecting businesses and venues being shut. Several private QR code services existed which were confusing to users as they were not fully usable. Some were breaching privacy rights of citizens by using their email addresses for sending spam. Other venues were using notebooks and not being fully compliant. In response to this and following health and expert advice, State Government took the decision to build their own QR code system for digital visitor registration.
Venues had to keep a digital record of visitors without processes and worrying about losing visitors’ personal data to bad actors.
The Govt needs this record to contact-trace and inform citizens during known cases of COVID to get tested for COVID
Third-party QR codes raised privacy concerns, caused email spam, and required app downloads, making them impractical for widespread use.
Focussing question
“How might we enable Victorian venues to help COVID-19 contact tracing by allowing their visitors to digitally register their visit during social gatherings?”
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The problem statement was very direct and unambiguous. So we were in the Solution Space rather than the problem space. Both, the back-end and front-end technology of the digital registration ‘tool’ were already decided. Thus, my responsibility was to help design the experience to enable the types of venues that were required to have this registration tool.
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This service had worked in other jurisdictions around the world with a QR code that was scannable with a smartphone. There was information available about this online from other jurisdictions that said that it was functioning well for them
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A large number of venues were already using QR codes created by 3rd party apps or using a do-it-yourself approach. Therefore it was something citizens were getting familiar with. The issue was that the data was not easily shareable with the Government. It was not necessarily deleted after 28 days as per privacy requirements.
The solution
A quick free digital service that lets venues create their own specific QR code to let citizens check-in.
Requirements for the digital visitor registration
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Input = output on poster
Information gathered from the venue owner about their venue was to display on the poster as unique and specific address and business name.
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Multiple locations
Some businesses or venues would own multiple venues who would have a different primary contact (e.g. franchises). Ability to add multiple locations in the same UX flow as an option
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Quick to generate poster
Ability to generate a poster within a few minutes, i.e. less than 10min for most businesses who owned only one business. Acknowledging that poster printing was an onus on the venue owner
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Existing venue workflow
Each type of venue had a distinct ‘customer journey’ for their visitors but still had similarities. So we had to fit and instruct where the QR code would fit into this workflow.
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Check-in data hidden from venue owner
Due to the technology architecture, venue owners were not going to be responsible for handing the data over to contact tracers. Thus their responsibility would end at helping customers to check-in. Data would be deleted after 28 days from check-in.
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Secure System
Making the registration portal secure but easily accessible by the business owner using their email and a password to add other locations or make edits.
Approach
Identifying users, Understanding user needs, Know other jurisdictions.
Understanding business needs for every government department and their stakeholders
Creating a prototype.
Validating feasibility of UX with Salesforce platform.
Market research for QR code design and practical use in the wild.
Running pilot with end users
Using combination of qualitative data and quantitative analytics to understand user pain points to be solved
Refine and deliver Improving on the pain points, accessibility, and inclusion for whole community.
Executing for high customer adoption at launch
Identifying our users:
The “needs” from the workshop were translated to design the user experience
While our squad’s focus was to design for user experience for Venues (businesses) I used an integrated approach to consider needs for the three user groups namely:
Venue owners (businesses)
Citizens (visitors to venue)
Contact tracers in Health Department
A quick process was used as seen alongside to map there requirements against each user group and categorised based on who was required to develop the feature/service.
UX and UI approach
Creating user flows and forms in Miro as proposed for Salesforce forms and portal for the required workflow(s).
Validating with developers on what was feasible through daily check-ins and picking feasible design patterns from Lightning OOTB system
Converting the Miro UX forms to Lightning web components in Sketch and combining with Ripple Design system style guide.
Developers creating custom components for Salesforce (where required) and contributing to Ripple design system
Designing content for emails, websites.
Working with Accessibility standards and 3rd party testing for accessibility.
UX flow
Tools
•Salesforce lightning design system components, Sketch
•Miro (online workshops, design, requirements gathering, presentations, UX reviews, etc),
Rationale for approach
By creating the desired experience and collaborating with with Salesforce architects and front-end developers, we used an iterative approach using a combination of out-of-the-box Salesforce components and custom-built HTML pages where necessary.
A full agile approach was applied which meant design was being implemented directly on the platform in batches.
I worked with the DPC UI designer to come up with these style guide and tokens for the design system for this product based on Ripple and Lightning
Pilot planning and execution
A pilot period was conducted to learn about the product before its full state-wide release. A mixed methods research approach was employed. I coordinated site visits, unmoderated testing, and moderated testing with team resources and support from the project manager. I developed the research plan, determined sample sizes, recruited users, handled communications, facilitated synthesis sessions, and compiled a report of findings for improvement and presentation.
100 venues
Tools
Communication and Research Ops
MS teams, Phone, Slack, Excel
Site visits
Clipboard, Camera, Eyes & ears
Unmoderated Testing & SUS survey
UserZoom, Surveymonkey
Capture, synthesise and present findings
Miro, Presentation mode
Key insights and actions
Note: Limited insights are mentioned here
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Venue owners found some of the copy ambiguous so they were hesitant to proceed despite still wanting to support the government efforts
Action: All copy was reviewed, page by page and made clearer to avoid confusion and increase conversion about privacy and what was venue owner’s duty boundaries
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Due to the requirement for enforcing this, venue owners assumed they would still have to maintain records and inform their visitors.
Action: Create more information via DJPR to inform where the responsibility of venue owners ended
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After observing the visitors as end users in the spaces, our team found that there was an assumption that venue owners and visitors would figure it out. But his tech was new to Australia despite being used in Asia.
Action: Creation of user guides and in-context help in the registration and check-in process, and specifying the app didn’t require a download. Also was adding ability to add dependents.
Facilitation was crucial to align 3 Govt departments at the same time.
Some collaborative workshops I facilitated with our teams to make decisions at pace are as follows
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User research synthesis
A collaborative data sharing session where researchers brought in their observations, photos and notes from their site visits.
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UX pains & Gains
Results from moderated and unmomderated testing were used to get a sense of pains, gains and showstopper issues for the interface for venues/businesses across the journey
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Roadmap against vision
A workshop where we gathered stakeholders and leads to go back to the product vision. Co-faciliated with product manager used breakout teams
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Retrospectives
Regular agile retrospectives after fortnightly sprints with core project team members to improve the process, and thereby, product.
With the insights and long term goals defined, we were able to focus on the final state of the user experience, post pilot.
With knowledge from user research, changes were proposed to the pilot experience and scoped out with our technology implementation teams
Then they were prioritised and put into the Backlog (immediate action) or Roadmap (future sprints)
In addition, accessibility testing results from an independent vendor were also reviewed and put on the backlog as mandatory fixes.
The solution was handed over to Department of Health to operate and they did some additional adjustments over the next year as the pandemic situation evolved.
UX improvements post-pilot and post launch
Screen recording showing high fidelity wireframes using a combination of Ripple and Salesforce lightning system
Ripple is the Vic state government design system to create consistent standards and familiarity for citizens.
Final design that was launched after 12 weeks
Features and benefits:
End2End process less than 5 minutes
Content and UI accessibility tested independently
Ability to login and edit details & regenerate QR code
Registering multiple locations and contact persons for franchise or branches
Email with poster links for all registered locations
User guides and privacy information in plain language
Ability to print in preferred size for different purposes
Outcomes
178K venues
Victorian businesses were users of the service
400K unique posters
on display around shops and communities.
8.1 million daily check-ins
QR code check-ins daily at its peak
Conclusion and evolution
It was imperative to design this to protect citizens and satisfy privacy obligations and address concerns while building a system that creates trust in contact tracing. Privacy and accessibility were of utmost importance, and we regularly consulted with SMEs throughout the project
Even if focus was on speed to market, we followed the double diamond approach, tested with end users (citizens and businesses) and ensured the design was feasible.
Further this was rolled out to commercial passenger vehicles (taxi, rideshares, etc) and I was involved in the discovery and design stages for this too.
The learnings from the QR code service also helped design a kiosk service which helped businesses log in users who didn’t have access to a smartphone to include these populations in the digital visitor registration
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The service was mandated in May/June 2021 and replaced other 3rd party app providers
Until the vaccine was rolled out successfully to over 90% of population this service was effective.
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If this project was not mission-critical, and fast-paced, I would do market-sizing, market research and product - market fit analysis upfront to get richer data and target the research as well as the product to the right audience and then create a roadmap from it.
The temporary scaling up of mini-research teams worked well by providing team members with worksheets and helped them to develop empathy with the users of the product too.