Her Majesty’s Passport Office needed to test and develop a major new online passport application system with potential users following a significant investment that included both physical and digital communications systems.
Prototypes and early developments needed to be tested with real people from all walks of life, and all ages, but done in a private and secure way to ensure confidentiality. The end-to-end experience of users of the new system lasted 6 weeks, and included digital and physical communications as well as a major new online application system.
We recruited participants using a web intercept that invited people visiting HMPO’s website who were about to renew their passport. Once onboard, participants of all ages were invited to trial the new system (without any financial incentives) and capture their experience using Further’s online research platform. Where they experienced difficulties, participants were asked to take screenshots and web recordings of the events and share and discuss them online with our moderators.
Despite concerns around how many participants could be recruited, we successfully onboarded over 100 people to trial the portal and over an 8-week period rapidly trialled and iterated the system to arrive at a smooth user experience that delighted both the client and future users of the new system. Insights and learnings were fed back to the design and build team who worked at-speed to make insightful changes to the technology.
The new online passport application system was launched to much applaud later that year.