"Prefeitura de Juiz de Fora" Case Study
Context and problem definition
Scene from the movie zootopia, where public servants are portrayed as sloths.
It may sound like a joke, but part of the public service is still like that. Dusty folders, physical processes and manual document transport.
An unfortunate reality for civil servants and citizens who are stuck with manual and ineffective procedures, resulting in the difficult task of providing and obtaining an efficient service.
Bureaucracy is necessary to obtain identification parameters for each individual.
But the rules don't have to be so strict and limited, in the sense of requiring a citizen to wait two hours in a line, fill out a form by hand, and return deadlines still unclear. This is not a reality in just one city, it is repeated in several important cities in Brazil.
Collaboration between municipal administrations through open source projects and integration APIs, such as the SEI for example, is the key to generating powerful tools for the efficiency of public services.
File of Proceedings of the City of Juiz de Fora (PJF).
The starting point
At the Department of Attention to Citizens of the Municipality of Juiz de Fora, the biggest request is the Clear Debt Clearance Certificate (CNDA), which is proof that the taxpayer does not have debts with the municipality.
The Certificate is requested in cases of validation in public tenders, participation in bidding processes, among others. About a thousand certificates are issued per month. This service, which in several cities in Brazil, is provided online.
This is the journey that a citizen faced to obtain a CNDA, this process has already been changed and enhanced, but it is still physical.
Immersion methodology, where a Clear Debt Clearance Certificate (CNDA) was requested and each step of the process was recorded to assess the user's journey.
User's Journey Map for issuing a Clearance Certificate.
Site analysis
Link to the form, which must be printed by the citizen, filled in by hand, and taken to a face-to-face service point, together with the required documentation.
In addition to disservice to citizens, due to the cost of time, inefficiency also has negative impacts on City Hall accounts.
The same thousand services per month, if carried out online, can generate savings of approximately R$100,000/year for public coffers.
User behavior
The tool used to study user behavior and identify opportunities for improvement was Google's analytics.
Main points identified after analysis:
- Bus itinerary is the third most accessed content
- 65% of access to the home page is done by servers
- 50% drop out of home
- 2019 has the lowest number of page views since April 2014
- In 2019, the site had more access via mobile devices than desktop
- 65% of access to the home page is done by servers
- 50% drop out of home
- 2019 has the lowest number of page views since April 2014
- In 2019, the site had more access via mobile devices than desktop
From these points, some directions for the ideation stage were determined:
- Make the website useful for the citizen, who becomes the main focus
- Facilitate access to the most sought after services
- New information architecture
- Create open-source, public and trustworthy platform
In the new structure, the content was reorganized into three main axes:
Live
Municipal public services for those who live in the city, including Certificates, Taxes, Urban Janitorial, Education, Health, Mobility, Sports and Leisure.
Invest
Directed to economic development and job and income generation. The module is for those looking to invest in the city, allowing entrepreneurs to open their own business, create business links and find talent available in the market.
Visit
Here the focus is on tourists, whether they are from the city or not. Tourist events, cultural agenda, tourist support, parks and museums.
The four-hour journey to issue a CNDA has been simplified to less than one minute, at a minimal cost to the administration.
After validating the prototype with the user, a new look for the desktop version was proposed, with the changes suggested in the interviews.
Juiz de Fora is a city with more than 500 thousand inhabitants, with a traffic of millions of views/year on the site.
For the city to prosper, it is essential to think about integrated digital solutions and use bureaucracy in its favor.
Receiving a quality service and taking control of your requests is a direct responsibility of the citizen.
This is a proposal open to everyone and is based on collaboration. Questions, suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.
To browse the prototype, just access this link: