Sharing official diplomas effortlessly using a data vault
Assessing the effectiveness of integrating a data vault for sharing diplomas on the government's 'My Citizen Profile' platform through usability testing.
Assessing the effectiveness of integrating a data vault for sharing diplomas on the government's 'My Citizen Profile' platform through usability testing.
Commissioned by the Flemish Government and HR company Randstad, we explored how a personal data vault could be integrated into the government’s My Citizen Profile platform (serving over 3 million users) to enable citizens to instantly share verified digital diplomas, eliminating paper copies, reducing HR validation time, and enhancing user trust.
A total of ten think-aloud usability tests were conducted in which participants were asked to share their diplomas with Randstad via My Citizen Profile. As they verbalized their thoughts, we uncovered how users understood (or misunderstood) the concept of data vaults, expressing both their likes and concerns along the way. After completing the task, participants took part in brief post-session interviews and filled out a short survey using standardized questionnaires to gather quantitative insights on perceived ease of use and usefulness.
Rather than simply reporting findings, I wanted stakeholders to experience users’ reactions firsthand. To achieve this, I created a video compilation highlighting the most revealing moments from the usability sessions. The video was organized into clear chapters, each focusing on a specific usability aspect, offering stakeholders an immersive and memorable way to understand user behavior and pain points.
The data collected from both usability tests and surveys was distilled into a series of key insights. The primary discovery revealed that the interface's challenge was more about explainability than usability. Many users found the concept of a data vault to be confusing. In response, we put forth a set of specific design recommendations for stakeholders involved, aimed at making the data vault concept more comprehensible.
The stakeholders expressed strong appreciation for our findings and design recommendations. The direct presentation of user reactions proved to be highly effective. As a result, many of our design proposals have been successfully integrated into a new iteration of the interface, benefiting a user base of over 3 million.
