繁中 | EN

Taipei City Childcare Registration and Lottery System Redesign

Duration

Jul. 2021 ~ Aug. 2021

Role

UX Researcher, UX Designer

Responsibility

Usability Testing, Cognitive Walkthrough, User Interviews

Company

PDIS - Ray 5.0 Program

Taipei Childcare System Redesign
Purpose

Conducted user research and redesign for Taipei City's public childcare registration and lottery system, enabling citizens to complete all processes—such as understanding rules, searching for institutions, and registering—on a single platform.

Challenge

Persuading the government to adopt the proposal without a pre-allocated budget was a significant challenge.

Production

Completed usability testing, user interviews, wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and concept testing, ultimately delivering high-fidelity design files for government reference.

Outcome

Proposed three solutions of varying complexity for the government’s consideration. Two years after the project’s completion, a new user-friendly guide was successfully launched on the official website.

Project Background

Public childcare primarily serves infants and toddlers aged 2 months to 2 years old, as well as parents registered in Taipei City. Eligible parents can visit the Social Affairs Bureau's public childcare website, read the relevant guidelines, and complete the registration form to participate in the waitlist or lottery for available spots. Each year, many anxious parents hope to secure public childcare services to alleviate the pressures of raising young children.

Problem Definition

Over 30% of applications were disqualified due to errors.

The Social Affairs Bureau's public childcare website lacks a well-structured information architecture and seamless user flow, making it difficult for parents to quickly find the necessary information and requirements. As a result, over 30% of the submitted documents contained errors or were from ineligible applicants.

In response to the nature of public services and childcare services, the following three design challenges remain:

All users are beginners

The public childcare service is used infrequently (1-2 times per year), so the design must treat every user as a first-time user.

Extensive childcare information

With rules varying by publication year and complex eligibility and priority criteria, it is crucial to ensure users can clearly understand the information provided.

Diverse user types and scenarios

As a public service catering to a wide audience, users will have diverse motivations and needs, requiring thoughtful consideration of different usage scenarios.

Current State Analysis

Stakeholder Map
Focus on the issues parents face during the stages of selecting childcare institutions, applying, and retrieving information.
Usability evaluation and cognitive walkthrough
The main issues are cluttered information and difficulty understanding lottery regulations.

Insufficient Error Prevention, Lack of Consistency, and Missing Assistance

We rated issues on a scale of 1 to 4 based on their severity. Among the 64 usability problems identified, the most critical were insufficient error prevention, lack of consistency, and the absence of help or guidance.

Scattered Documents and Poorly Organized Forms

Through the team's cognitive walkthrough of three main tasks—understanding rules, finding childcare institution information, and registration—it was observed that although the process is simple and linear, disorganized documents, inconsistent text and color usage, and cluttered form layouts significantly reduce users' efficiency in reading and locating information.

We interviewed six parents and summarized the results into three personas

Personas and User Variables

Based on varying motivation levels and information needs, users can be categorized into three types.

Based on the current situation and user interview results, we identified three issues where the system fails to meet user needs and developed corresponding design solutions.

Problem Convergence

Solutions

We also found that parents frequently use their mobile phones for service applications in daily scenarios, so we decided to optimize the RWD interface.

Additional Finding

Due to childcare needs and busy work schedules, parents often rely on their mobile phones for complex information searches and applications.

Concept Validation

Qualitative feedback from testing shows that the final design successfully addresses the issues originally identified.

Proposal

Due to the inherent difficulty of implementing website reforms in the government, we broke down all solutions into the following three approaches and guided Social Affairs Bureau staff, including the Women's and Children's Section staff, Section Chief, and Digital Minister Audrey Tang, to interact with the prototype. All government officials were highly satisfied with our design:

  1. Minimal Cost Solution: No website development needed, only reorganizing information.
  2. Priority Solution for Maximum Benefit: In addition to redesigning the information, prioritize improving the form-filling experience.
  3. Full Solution for Maximum User Experience Optimization: Complete solution with all improvements.

Two years after the project ended, the staff contacted us to request the design of the original guide, which was then used as the foundation for the release of a new guide!

Key Learnings

《 實習心得 》 我在唐鳳辦公室實習ㄝ！？公共數位創新空間 PDIS x Ray 5.0 見習計畫（上）

《 實習心得 》 曲終人散 ~ 最終我們留下了什麼？公共數位創新空間 PDIS x Ray 5.0 見習計畫（下）