CPF Member Portal
Central Provident Fund Board • 2021
The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a key pillar of Singapore’s social security system. CPF helps Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents set aside funds to build a strong foundation for retirement.
4.2 million
Members in 2022
150+
Digital services
90 million
Transactions in 2022
Overview
Background
This multi-phase digital transformation project began as a proof of concept in the second half of 2019. This phase helped CPFB define the project's requirements and processes.
In the project's second phase, we faced legacy technical issues. However, with the collaboration of over nine product owners and the CPF Digital Team, we launched the pre- and post-login at the end of October 2021, within a year.
My responsibility included winning the project through shaping and scoping the proposal and leading the design for the post-login experience across all digital services. As a team, we created CFPB's first design language system.
Currently, in the third phase, we've developed a framework for forms and proposed new features that will shape the fourth phase and future phases.
My role as a design lead
I guided and led the project by carrying out qualitative user research and defining the user experience strategy, information architecture, and interaction design. I led the design team and cross-functional using an adapted double diamond approach. At the same time, I mapped and shaped user stories through intensive collaboration with the product owners and technology team.
Impact
This project has been recognised as a key case study in digital transformation for all government agencies and has enabled Accenture to unlock several significant projects. It has garnered numerous awards and achieved an 88% user satisfaction rate, indicating its success among Singaporeans.
Activities
Scoping and Planning
User Research
Co-creation Workshops
User Experience Strategy
Interaction Models
User Story Mapping and Grooming
User Interface Design
Design System Creation and Governance
Usability Testing
Discover
User interviews & journey mapping
300+
Members interviewed
24 - 87
Age range
Since 2019, we have spoken with over 300 members of the public to better understand their needs and concerns. This resulted in the creation of six user journey maps. We began with a broad overview, focusing on the CPF members' interactions with the portal, and gradually shifted to a more detailed view as we examined specific CPF products like Retirement and Healthcare.
We interviewed CPF members across a wide age range, from a 24-year-old professional to 87-year-old retirees (including one who insisted we meet at an ice cream parlour and persuaded me to buy her a sundae in addition to the incentive she was receiving for the interview). These interviews were conducted according to key life stages associated with CPF.
“Please consolidate for us.”
The verbatim from our user research that provided our North Star.
Define
Strategy & roadmap planning
A collaborative effort.
Based on our research insights, we defined a UX strategy to align the project. We also discussed with the CPFB's senior management, including the CIO, to better understand their vision.
An initial round of prioritisation and grooming was conducted with product owners. This process involved collaboration and coordination among them to ensure a well-maintained backlog and a roadmap aligned with the overall goals and vision.
To manage this agile delivery project, we collaborated with over 60 departments and trained 150 CPF employees, resulting in 81 design stories and 180 development stories.
60
Departments
81
Design stories
150
CPF employees
180
Development stories
Design
Agile & design sprints
30+
Sprints
3 weeks
Sprint duration
During the course of the project, we conducted over 30 design sprints. CPFB Product Owners, alongside Accenture's functional and design squad, estimated, prioritised, and incorporated user stories into the sprint plan. Each design sprint lasted three weeks. At the end of each sprint, the squad handed over the deliverables to the functional team for further detailed development of the user stories.
In each sprint, we:
Prioritised user stories based on the Definition of Ready and the squad's capacity for each design sprint.
Lead the grooming and mapping of user stories with the POs.
Designed the user interface and interaction for the prioritised user stories.
Worked closely with the DLS squad to ensure CPF’s DLS governance was in place and to refactor our design, if needed.
Reviewed the design with POs.
Prepared a usability testing (UT) script and a clickable prototype for UT sessions.
Conducted UT, synthesis the result and playback the our recommendations to the POs .
Validated user story design with POs based on the Definition of Done.
Story maps for grooming.
Design
Sample work
Home Protection Scheme (HPS) Exemption Calculator | View the work
CPF statement: Transaction history
CPF dashboard: Healthcare
Design
Design language system
The Design Language, a crucial aspect of the project, was built from scratch to serve as a single source of truth for all development implementations. The client digital team, our designers and creative technologists collaborated in a co-delivery format to realise our visions and ensure future scalability.
One significant challenge was integrating the various types of complex computational tables that CPFB had into a single component (dubbed "Frankenstein"). The goal was to ensure our design could cater to future use cases. I went a step further by ensuring we don't use HTML tables, as they are not responsive. It took 16 weeks of designing for different scenarios and user testings to perfect it.
Another hurdle was designing and documenting the interaction model of the forms and calculators, with the need to accommodate the conditions of various digital services.
Overcoming these challenges required the entire team to unify and work together. The process wasn't always smooth, with lengthy and occasionally heated discussions. However, these discussions ultimately improved the project and our way
of working.
As a result, this project became a showcase piece for other government agencies and laid the groundwork for many future projects.
Result
88% user satisfaction rate within the first month of launch.
Significantly changed how over four million Singaporeans interact with one of the city-state's largest and most prominent government agencies.
We marked a milestone in redesigning the Central Provident Fund Board (CPFB) customer experience, reimagining the user interface, and enabling the transformation through integrating new technologies with legacy systems. This significantly changed how over four million Singaporeans interact with one of the city-state's largest and most prominent government agencies.
We transformed traditionally slower go-to-market delivery times into an agile powerhouse that leverages multiple data sources for real-time insights. This resulted in an 88% user satisfaction rate within the first month of launch.
Awards & recognition
The project won multiple awards, including a Gold award for SGMark 2022. It also serves as a significant milestone and case study for Accenture and the whole government.
Conclusion
I am extremely proud of the result. Not only did I play a pivotal role in shaping, designing, and delivering the project, but I also achieved my career goal of serving my fellow Singaporeans. Seeing that others shared this goal was truly rewarding.