Chapter 4: The Human-Centred Design (HCD) Process

4.1 Phase 1: Discover — Immersive Research and Stakeholder Mapping

This phase was about building empathy and understanding the landscape.

• Stakeholder Workshops: Facilitate sessions with officials from pilot MDAs to map workflows, pain points, and common queries
• Citizen Immersion: Engage through focus groups and contextual inquiry, paying attention to rural populations, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and non-native speakers
• Competitive and Comparative Analysis: Review government helplines, websites, and private-sector chatbots to identify best and poor practices

4.2 Phase 2: Define — Synthesising Insights into Personas and Journey Maps

Convert raw research into actionable design tools.

• User Personas: Create 3–5 profiles representing key user segments
  

  Example: “Amina, a 45-year-old market trader in Mombasa who prefers Kiswahili.”

• As-Is User Journey Maps: Chart current experience and highlight pain points
• To-Be Journey Maps: Redesign ideal journeys with GovBot to eliminate pain points

4.3 Phase 3: Design & Prototype — Crafting Conversation Flows and Interfaces

• Conversation Scripting: Detailed dialogue flows, greetings, follow-ups, error handling, and escalation to human agents
• Prototype Development: Low-fidelity interactive prototypes with human simulation
• UI/UX Design for Channels: Clean and accessible interfaces aligned with government branding guidelines

4.4 Phase 4: Validate — Usability Testing and Iterative Refinement

• Usability Testing Sessions: Participants attempt tasks (e.g., “Find how to register for a film license”)
• A/B Testing: When undecided between design alternatives, test both with real users
• Iterate and Refine: Improve based on feedback in continuous design-test cycles