Bridging the gap: Making tech more accessible for the rest of government

Asia experienced the highest growth in its e-government services, according to the latest 2024 United Nations (UN) e-government survey.

Yet, the key concerns in product accessibility and user satisfaction remains as core principles to keep good design for government technologies rooted for user-centred projects.

At GovInsider’s Festival of Innovation, government technology pioneers from Singapore and abroad highlighted some of the most exciting initiatives in the region.

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AI and problem solving

Cheaper, faster and better.

Aside from this being GovTech Singapore’s guiding principle to build more impactful digital products, GovTech’s Director of Product Management, Gabriyel Wong, observed that this was what consumers sought out for most of the time as well.

Deploying artificial intelligence (AI) agents has allowed for a more robust execution of government software and services, he noted.

The nature of AI also creates a feedback loop, where software updates become faster and more efficient.

As AI agents learn from both GovTech designers and users, it bridges the gap between user problems and developer response time. In this way, AI agents greatly accelerate the time needed in product development.

Yet, while AI agents can exponentially increase productivity of product management and development, he acknowledged its limitations.

Wong highlighted that AI agents were still “blind” and biased, requiring guidance to meet the right user objectives and experience.

“(Having) this team [the AI agents] at your disposal, I think it’s also calls for a new paradigm for us to really think about a Team of Teams, having agents in our team,” Wong concluded.

You can watch Wong’s full presentation on-demand here.

Experimenting for public good

Another challenge faced by public agencies is tackling the diverse concerns of citizens.

Senior Product Designer, Rachel Tan highlighted the how Open Government Products (OGP) focuses on experimental technology to address this in the local context.

Contrary to the belief that the public sector is rigid and inefficient, OGP aims to identify problems they wish to solve from the ground up. They constantly review their ideas by building on what works through trial-and-error to positively impact citizens.

Familiar products that OGP has implemented include ParkingSG, Careers@Gov 2.0, and ScamShield, touching the lives of more than 5.5 million residents. ScamShield to date has blocked up to 12 million scam calls, emails and SMSes.

Tools such as RedeemSG have also supported more than 400 million individuals in need of financial assistance.

Tan also shared how OGP has been working on the product, Pair, an AI-driven chatbot, aimed at empowering every public officer in Singapore with AI tools.

According to her, products like Pair and ScamShield were all developed during annual hackathons held by OGP in response to problems faced by Singaporeans.

“Just experiment and put your product out there,” she said, alluding to how despite the potential risks, it was only through experimentation that Pair was able to develop more capabilities and evolve to support the work of public officers.

You can watch Tan’s full presentation on-demand here.

Leaving no one behind

In this era of rapid digitisation, Japan Digital Agency’s Associate Policy Researcher, Sara Takamatsu, stressed her agency’s mission of creating “human friendly digitisation in which no one is left behind”.  

Specifically, her agency helms the “Priority Policy Programme,” a strategy that steers the digitalisation efforts in Japan.

Takamatsu stated that “by working together with  the private sector experts and the civil servants, we’re hoping to break down any siloes that may have occurred within the past three years that we have been in operation for.”

Their initiatives, “My Number System” and “My Number Card”, had seen a 75.2 per cent uptake by the Japanese population, mirroring other online personal information portals such as Singpass.

My Number Card also facilitated access to administrative procedures from the home, which was not formerly possible.

Takamatsu further shared that accessibility was especially important in the Japanese context, especially given the country’s rapidly ageing population.

Acknowledging that it could be difficult to implement accessibility principles, the agency created guidelines to ensure standardisation in promoting digital products to the population.

She highlighted that knowing where to start could be a challenge for other agencies.

The guidebook was designed to equip public officers with practical user-centred knowledge and customised to the Japanese context.

The agency expects at least six million people to benefit from more accessible digital government services, Takamatsu shared.

You can watch Takamatsu’s full presentation on-demand here.