Questions/Answers

“Happiest City on Earth” Vision: Smart Dubai initiative was launched with a vision to become the “Happiest City on Earth” by leveraging technology as an enabler. This ambitious vision compelled Smart Dubai to provide seamless city experiences to citizens and residents in Dubai. It provided an immense opportunity to redesign and enhance city experiences for citizens and residents of Dubai by utilizing leading edge emerging technologies and providing state-of-the-art city services. A One-stop-Shop City Services for All: DubaiNow was implemented as a major innovation which entailed providing a “One-stop-Shop” mobile app providing city services to all citizens and residents of Dubai. DubaiNow is launched in Oct 2018 as a dual platform app, i.e. for both iOS and Android platforms, to address a great majority of population in Dubai. It is designed as a mobile app since Dubai’s mobile penetration is over 250% and similarly the smart phone penetration is very high among Dubai citizens and residents. DubaiNow is designed to flexibly incorporate hundreds of city services in a citizen focused manner. More specifically, it transformed the approach of government service provision from managing and delivering hundreds of government-centric, entity-based services to customer-centric ones from 30+ entities with a harmonized UX, It's implemented by agile development techniques and design thinking for CRs’ needs and expectations. Broad stakeholders were involved for co-creating flexible and accelerated urban services. DubaiNow uses AI-based predictive analytics for data insights in user preferences, app usage, marketing etc. Includes a “Happiness Meter” to engage users and gauge happiness for prompt and continuous service improvements.

In line with the category's essence to shift towards digital-by-design, DubaiNow was designed to enable increased access to quality and affordable public services, especially to those living in poverty and the most vulnerable. Delivering inclusive and equitable services requires many public sector institutions to both reform and transform their service delivery mechanisms so as to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in public service delivery, and that is at the core of DubaiNow's business model. The citizen and resident of Dubai is no longer required to go to the government, but rather the government will come to them.

Goals 16 - Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions Target 16.6 - Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels Goal 17 - Partnership for the Goals Targets: 17.1 - Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection 17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships The core concept of DubaiNow is to allow, encourage and strengthen effective and efficient public services, where the citizen, resident and visitor of Dubai no longer needs to visit service centers to carry on government services. In return this has truly enabled Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels, by ensuring better resource mobilization, transparent and coherent public service offerings, boosted services quality, and improved revenue collection all across the government. All from the comfort of a mobile-app in one's phone.

The aim of DubaiNow is to offer citizens and residents a one-stop experience for all government interactions, available seamlessly and safely at their fingertips. In turn, this is creating immense savings for both individuals (in terms of time used for visiting government services) and governments (in terms of less paper work and less service centers). Combined, these savings provide clear proof of the economic and environmental sustainability. As for the social aspect, the entire system is closely tied with a feedback mechanism called the "Happiness Meter" to ensure public's perception of the services is always a priority.

Dubai Government provides hundreds of public services to its citizens and residents from more than 30 public sector entities. These services cover a wide range of city domains from mobility to environment, economy, society, governance, etc. These citizen and resident services were provided through each entity separately and across entities’ multiple digital channels resulting in a highly fragmented distribution of digital services. The fragmentation of digital services made it difficult for citizens and residents to know what services were available and where exactly. Furthermore, each and every entity website and mobile app had a different design, navigation and user experience which made it cumbersome for citizens and residents to reach their city services in a unified, homogeneous and easy-to-use manner. This created an enormous opportunity for Smart Dubai to provide a citizen focused “One-stop-shop” for all city services provided by Dubai Government entities, hence the project “DubaiNow” was created. DubaiNow aimed to bring all Dubai services to a single app in line with citizens’ and residents’ expectations, hence the name Dubai; and also, to provide them instantaneously at users’ fingertips, hence the name Now; which led to DubaiNow.

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The target group for DubaiNow are the general public (citizens, residents and visitors of Dubai) DubaiNow: • was launched with 50+ services in Oct 2018 and reached 120+ city services by Jun 2020 • has become the de facto “City App” for CRs in Dubai • downloads (iOS and Android) reached 409K in Jun 2020 • highest monthly active users reached 196K in 2020 • has conducted 7.87 million transactions from Oct 2019 to Jun 2020 • has conducted 2.26 million digital payment transactions collecting 1.2 billion AED (326 million US Dollars) • reached 83.6% happiness rating based on 160,000+ Happiness Meter votes • is a significant pillar in Dubai’s “Paperless Strategy” with each user projected to save 98 pieces of paper annually • saves ~ 67Dhs ($18) for individuals per transaction. The savings accumulate considering millions of public service transactions • has significantly reduced Red Tape due to fully digital services delivery • has conducted 50+ UX Lab sessions with citizens to co-create & test services • has created a Whole-Of-Government culture for 30+ entities breaking silos • has achieved projected savings of 335 million AED (~90 million US Dollars) via economies of scale • has been particularly beneficial during CoVID-19 contributing to a safer and healthier society

• DubaiNow was implemented as a major innovation which entailed providing a “One-stop-Shop” mobile app providing city services to all citizens and residents of Dubai. DubaiNow is launched in Oct 2018 as a dual platform app, i.e. for both iOS and Android platforms, to address a great majority of population in Dubai. • From Entity Focus to Citizen Focus: DubaiNow is designed to flexibly incorporate hundreds of city services in a citizen focused manner. • Data Sharing Across Government Entities: DubaiNow makes use of extensive data sharing among all public sector entities in a private and secure manner. The services related data is accessed through secure APIs designed and provided by Dubai Government entities to enable a citizen centred service delivery concept in DubaiNow. • DubaiNow is designed by using agile development techniques and design thinking around customer needs through a technique Smart Dubai called “city customer journeys”. Design thinking enabled engaging and involving customers during services design and incorporating their inputs to the solution itself during design. Agile development methodology enabled flexible and accelerated city services incorporation into DubaiNow. It also enabled rapid services delivery through collaboration with government entities while meeting the needs and expectations of Dubai citizens and residents. • A Whole-of-Government Approach: DubaiNow implementation entailed an unprecedented whole-of-government approach delivered through government-wide teams collaborating beyond typical agency boundaries. It was driven by Smart Dubai which is the main centralized government entity for digital transformation and has acted as the main orchestrator and the enabler entity. • Uses AI-based predictive analytics for data insights in user preferences, app usage, marketing etc. • Includes a “Happiness Meter” to engage users and gauge happiness for prompt and continuous service improvements • Was developed with a unique “services framework” with reusable common components for coherent UX in all services

Being a one-stop-shop for government services that are provided by 30 government entities entails a lot of obstacles in terms of maintaining the quality of the service delivery, and the user experience. Early on, DubaiNow adopted a single coherent UX methodology with consistent navigation, to ensure that the user experience is unified regardless of the service being access. Additionally, and to ensure usability, the app was co-created in a UX Lab with citizens and residents of Dubai. Finally, the app also embodied a shift from Entity focus to Citizen focus, to ensure that seamless integration of hundred of service.

DubaiNow: • has a single coherent UX with consistent navigation • is flexibly designed to accommodate hundreds of citizen services via hierarchical topics and micro-apps. • includes services on-the-go (e.g. nearest ATM locator) • is a flagship product of Dubai’s “Paperless Strategy” requiring 0 paper for all services • uses award winning single secure digital authentication for all city services • uses single digital payment for all city services with bill presentment and payment capability • Happiness Meter enables continuous feedback & service enhancement • Enables AI-based customer behaviour and services analyses • has enabled interoperability through standards-based seamless and lawful data exchange

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• Enables AI-based customer behaviour and services analyses • uses single digital payment for all city services with bill presentment and payment capability • uses award winning single secure digital authentication for all city services

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What was required to build this was a design that included over 180 hours of research, then moving on to an iterative framework design process which included significant technical human resources mobilization (a team of over 100 members including developers, coders, UX designers, managers, executives, and account managers - spread across phases). This resulted in the initial prototype. Later on, the initiative moved on to the modularisation phase , which included the use of already existing infrastructure and ICT systems, such as the Dubai Government Resource Bus, and the Smart Dubai customer service hotlines.

The very fact that DubaiNow is built on central and extensible design and code, as well as the back-end, assures efficiency in realizing the objectives of the exercise. From an institutional point of view, and when design blocks are standardized, it becomes cheaper to develop and maintain, resulting in sustainability over time.

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Internal Review Broadly speaking there are two different types of experience review that were carried out – scenario based reviews and heuristic based reviews.Scenario based reviews evaluate a system against likely user scenarios, such as paying a fine. Heuristic reviews, on the other hand, evaluate an interface against a set of usability and accessibility heuristics (i.e. best practice) or metrics. The two are by no means mutually exclusive and are most effective when used together as they ensure the most comprehensive examination of the app both from a holistic perspective and when looking at individual screen elements and interactions.

Smart Dubai applied 63 usability and accessibility guidelines (these are general accepted standards)* and conducted set user journeys of the app (registration/post registration service sign up etc.)

203 issues reported in total 56 major impact issues - Issues that are deemed substantial barriers to app access or usage. These can be referred to as “blockers” in the user’s ability to complete their task. 108 medium impact issues - Issues that do not act as a barrier to usage but compromise the delivery of a consistent and intuitive user experience. 39 minor impact issues - Issues encountered that do not act as a barrier to usage nor greatly compromise delivery of the user experience but which should be addressed in the interest of best practice. We have graded them according to their severity – namely do they prevent the user from being able to access the app or are they simply superficial design inconsistencies that refute best practice approaches.

The idea of sharing platforms is rooted deep within the essential concept of a Smart City. DubaiNow, by design, is a perfect example of a platform that reinforced and strengthens collaboration across public sector institutions. In doing so, DubaiNow emphasizes the need for functional dialogue between entities. As a result, services are delivered far more efficiently and effectively, creating a discourse of modularity, re-use and efficiency. Achieving key aspirations of a Smart City.

DubaiNow contains more than 120 services and aims to incorporate more in the future by leveraging on public sector entities’ services and even selective private sector entity services complementing and adding further value on top of the public sector itself. In this regard, DubaiNow is designed by using agile development techniques and design thinking around customer needs through a technique Smart Dubai called “city customer journeys”. Design thinking enabled engaging and involving customers during services design and incorporating their inputs to the solution itself during design. Agile development methodology enabled flexible and accelerated city services incorporation into DubaiNow. It also enabled rapid services delivery through collaboration with government entities while meeting the needs and expectations of Dubai citizens and residents. DubaiNow implementation entailed an unprecedented whole-of-government approach delivered through government-wide teams collaborating beyond typical agency boundaries. It was driven by Smart Dubai which is the main centralized government entity for digital transformation and has acted as the main orchestrator and the enabler entity. Furthermore, within Smart Dubai a specialized team called “Digital Tribe” was formed and assumed leadership of this enormous transformation at the government level by working with agile teams from more than 30 government entities to deliver DubaiNow.

Over the years, it has been key to understand which technology is best for specific design blocks. This has been an iterative process, and DubaiNow believes that it wil be an ever evolving learning and relearning journey. Additionally, and once teams are able to articulate and clearly model services and user journeys, specialists are able to loook into ways of improving the efficiency of the services. This leads to improvements on two different fronts, the service design from technology and coding side, and the process of the service at the entity's side.