The biggest mistake an e-services provider can make is to allow technological capabilities alone to determine the design and usability of their online services. This is a mistake Saudi Arabia won’€™t be making for the development and implementation of the next phase of e-Government services; as they are putting their people first in an attempt to understand and measure the services their citizens are willing to use.
Yesser, the country’s e-Government program is prioritising end user experience, and to expedite implementation they are supporting the 4th Annual Kingdom e-Government Summit, organised by French deal facilitation group naseba. The two-day summit is taking place in Riyadh.
Yesser’s Director General, Eng Ali Bin Saleh Soma, delivered an insightful opening address yesterday, confirming: “Enterprise architecture and virtualisation are the main focus in our 2nd National Action Plan — these will play a key role in e-transformation. To assist government authorities in e-transformation, Yesser has yearly reviews of each agency and provides a report to senior management so they know their strengths and weaknesses”
A citizen centric e-Government plan is crucial to ensure the high usage of e-services by the community. Above all it will lead the country towards a smarter and more sustainable future, in terms of accessibility of government services, efficiency, cost effectiveness — and with many services digitally based — it will have a positive effect on the environment through a reduction in the need for paper.
This important topic was covered in depth during a panel discussion featuring Amer Zein El Abdin, VP – Business Development, WITS; Dr Jarallah Al Ghamdi, Vice Minister and CIO Ministry of Education; Eng Anas Al Solai , Deputy Director &€“ ICT for Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities; and Eng Saleh Al Awaji, Deputy Director General of Department of Zakat and Income Tax.
“At times end user experience is misunderstood as only improving the graphical interface — in reality end user experience means the response time is good, the downtime is not too long and the correction in down time is fast and indeed the ease of the interface and navigation also play a role,” explained Dr Jarallah.
Eng Saleh highlighted the Department of Zakat & Income Tax’s experiences: “€œSeven years ago we developed our first e-Service and today the Department of Zakat & Income Tax receives more than 99% of its payments through SADAD, which is almost equal to US$ 6.13 billion.”
El Abdin concluded by saying: “Getting the feedback from experts — as well as from customers — is really important for end user experience. A lot of organisations in the Kingdom are utilising twitter to get feedback, which works well for this twitter-active country. Sentimental analysis is a little tricky to implement, but surely this is something that will have to be brought into all organisations in the near future.”