SCOPE — Portal · Service directory · Service pages · Sign-in · Accessibility
TEAM — Khaled and me on design, for Ejad Tech, the vendor building the portal
Delivered as design
The setting
A website that worked the way the ministry did
Environment, water and agriculture had become one ministry, and its site still filed services by the system that ran them: enquiry services, billing services, general services. A farmer, a beekeeper, a fishing company and a visitor all had to know the org chart to find a form. Ejad Tech was building the new portal. Khaled and I designed it, Arabic first, from the directory to the service page.
The count
What was delivered
33 screens · 5 audiences · 7 agencies · 3 ways to sign in · 4 accessibility tools · 46 symbols · Arabic, right to left
Audience first, then agency
Who are you, before what do you need
The directory opens on four audiences, individuals, business, government and visitors, and the home adds a fifth for people with disabilities. Then the seven agencies, then a column browser down to the service. The most-used services wait above it as cards. Every service page leads with three facts before the form: how long, for whom, where.
Built in, not bolted on
Accessibility in the frame of every page
Two tools already existed, lost in a bar of placeholder labels: colours for everyone, and voice commands. We kept them, added contrast and font size, and gave the four a toolbar. Then every content page got share, font size, print, read aloud, comment and call, and every page a closing question: are you having trouble using the site.
One system, many ministries
A kit, not a page
Sign-in is one screen with three doors under the national single sign-on: individuals, companies, government staff. Menus, cells, footers and help bands are symbols, and the home is a stack of modules the ministry can reorder. Before the files were final, the same kit had been dressed as a second ministry’s home page.
Credits
Who did what
Product design, UX and UI: Sayed Essam and Khaled Al Nagar. Product, build and client: Ejad Tech. Client and identity: Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Saudi Arabia.
