When SKAT (the tax authorities) deferred Mobil TastSelv (‘Mobile Key-it-yourself’)

SKAT avoided having investing development time on a self-service solution that people were not ready for in practice.

”I have difficulty visualizing it. Because when you send something in to SKAT it will always involve a load of paperwork. I don’t think I’d want to sit in a commuter train or some other public place with my private documents spread around me.”

Member of the public on Mobil TastSelv

The staff of SKAT were considering developing an SMS version of TastSelv so that people could fill their tax returns in on the go. But MindLab’s inclusion of some of these citizens in the testing of the SMS solution showed that SKAT’s vision was not being eagerly embraced by the public. This insight led to SKAT putting off the concept of a mobile version of TastSelv and allowed it to avoid devoting costly development time to a solution that people were not ready for in practice.

MindLab involved:

• Nine individuals who participated in a workshop at MindLab.

Principal results

• The concept of Mobil TastSelv was taken off the table, and resources that would have been spent on developing it further were saved.

• MindLab concurrently developed a catalogue of ideas for the development of a future version of TastSelv that will be quality assured by both the front-line staff and the public. One of SKAT’s uses of the catalogue is as a reference work.

• A prioritization of ideas for the future version of TastSelv that takes the needs of the public as its starting point.

What MindLab did

Taking as its starting point the needs and challenges of the public plus SKAT’s business strategy, SKAT initially identified five different development tracks for digital citizen services: ‘Skræddersyet TastSelv’ (‘Customized TastSelv’), ‘Spil SKAT’ (‘Play SKAT’), ‘Hjælpen er nær’ (‘Help is at hand’), ‘Samlet overblik’ (‘Global Overview’) and ‘Mobile TastSelv’ (‘Mobile Key-it-yourself’) . The concepts were translated into scenarios consisting of text plus drawings that illustrated how citizens could administer their tax affairs in practice if the five scenarios were to become a reality. During a workshop these scenarios were presented to nine members of the public who were asked to assess them. They were expected not just to state their immediate perceptions of such things as whether they found the possibility of administering their tax affairs on a mobile attractive, but to take a very practical stance concerning the usability of the individual concepts and ideas. MindLab’s contribution to the project consisted of organizing, conducting and reporting on two workshops. The purpose of the first workshop was to involve SKAT’s front-line employees in identifying the needs and challenges of the public together with potential new approaches. The second workshop gave a number of existing and potential users of SKAT’s digital citizen services an opportunity to discuss and evaluate various scenarios for the digital solutions of the future with SKAT’s employees.

”Following the project we have often sat in meetings and asked one another how the people from the citizens’ workshop would have responded to the idea we were labouring on.”

Henrik Kähler, SKAT project manager