CONECTA-TCU

Currently, almost all communication between the TCU and public bodies is mediated by the postal service (sending and receiving), which generates high expenditure of public money, little transparency, and significant delays in the process, especially regarding notification and monitoring of decisions. Details follow below:

• - The time for a determination to be made, from the issuance by the TCU to the agency's response, is, on average, 15 days;

• - Information regarding processes, rulings, and determinations is not centralized, requiring access to various systems to complete tasks. This leads to delays and a lack of transparency, and availability is not immediate.

• - The contracts between the TCU and the Post Office cost millions of reais.

Given this scenario, our challenge is:

"How can we promote transparency and more assertive and rapid communication with other agencies?""

To meet the challenge, it will be important to achieve the following results:

• 1. To facilitate the consultation and visualization of information regarding processes, rulings, and determinations issued by the TCU;

• 2. To reduce the time and costs for sending and receiving communications between the TCU and public bodies;

• 3. To reduce the bureaucracy involved;

• 4. To have greater transparency in the steps and access to documents.

In this project, I helped devise the system development strategy together with the development team, requirements, and the Product Owner. I facilitated processes and meetings for the creation of new features, conducted research, suggested metrics, and designed improved user experiences and system interface.

Product Backlog Building

The requirements gathering was done using Product Backlog Building together with the PO and internal stakeholders (TCU), resulting in several features that were organized and prioritized into 6 releases.

Design Sprint

We ran a Design Sprint focused on an external audience, that is, with auditors and employees from other public bodies, to better understand their needs regarding access to processes, rulings, and determinations. For more details about the Sprint, please refer to the documents below:

Design Sprint Details CONECTA-TCU

MVP Design Sprint CONECTA-TCU

Design Sprint Report CONECTA-TCU

Task flow

We created task flows that are typically followed by each of the three basic profiles in the CONECTA-TCU system:

• - Profile for consulting court decisions, proceedings, or rulings;

• - Communications operator profile;

• - Profile of a lawyer or legal representative.

Information architecture

In addition to the task flow, we structured and organized the system sections, divided among the three main profiles.

Inspired by the Design Sprint prototype and based on the identified problems, we sketched several home screen options based on dashboard interfaces in order to optimize the experience for each user profile. During the redesign process, the cards in the current interface were improved, both visually and in terms of functionality, for example, the availability of individual or batch operations.

One of the challenges of systems like this is choosing the KPIs that best represent quantitative results, such as conversion, engagement, and task success, and qualitative results, such as expectations, performance, and usability, to measure the performance of the platform's use. Ideally, for a product or service, metrics should be established during creation, not afterward, and once defined, they should generate insights that enable decision-making. Thus, we define:

• - Value and objective: To increase the transparency of internal processes, expedite compliance with regulations, and reduce costs;

• - Indicators: Time to awareness upon receiving communications, number of open support tickets, time to comply with instructions, and cost savings on postal services;

• - Goals: Reduce the number of days for science from 15 to 5, decrease the number of open support tickets by 50%, reduce the time to comply with determinations from 180 days to 90 days, and decrease by 20% the amount transferred to the Post Office for the delivery of determination processes;

• - Data collection frequency: create a tool that collects data daily;

• - Timeframe: having this data will take between 6 months and 1 year, depending on the functionalities already implemented on the platform;

• - Presentation: reports and dashboards.

To map and record all this data, a system called TCU-GERENCIAL was developed, which will provide statistical data on the use of the CONECTA-TCU system.

Usability analysis (SUS)

Usability is somewhat difficult to measure, at least quantitatively. Therefore, we can use some numerical usability scales to point out usability problems in our interface. Here, therefore, the SUS (System Usability Scale) was used because it presents a balance between scientific accuracy and the shortest time for its analysis.

The Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) has 3 main objectives: to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of the interface. Therefore, we have defined 10 questions for users to evaluate, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). They are:

1. 1 - I prefer using this system instead of the other one we have;

2. 2 - I find the system complex;

3. 3 - I found the system easy to use;

4. 4 - I needed help using the system;

5. 5 - I think the various functions of the system are very well integrated;

6. 6 - I think the system is very inconsistent;

7. 7 - I imagine that people will be able to use this system quickly;

8. 8 - I found the system complicated to use;

9. 9 - I felt confident using the system;

10. 10 - I needed to learn several things before I was able to use the system.

For a more precise result, the usability analysis was conducted immediately after system usability testing, which was mostly done in an unmoderated manner where users had to complete certain tasks. As a result, we obtained a total of 50 responses with an average score of 82.5 points, which is a quite satisfactory score.

Eliminating barriers on the web presupposes that websites and portals are designed so that all people can understand, navigate, and interact effectively with web pages and content, especially those with some type of limitation, whether intellectual, physical, or motor. For these reasons, designing accessible systems is a commitment of any and all systems and applications that the Federal Government develops for use by its employees and citizens, and here at CONECTA-TCU, it was no different. Thus, to democratize access and digital inclusion, the accessibility guidelines used in our system were based on the Electronic Government Accessibility Model (eMAG), which consists of a set of recommendations to be considered so that the accessibility process of Brazilian government websites and portals is conducted in a standardized way and is easy to implement.

Given the numerous recommendations (approximately 50), we prioritized some for these first 6 deliverables of the CONECTA-TCU system, namely:

• - Recommendation 1.1 – Respect Web Standards;

• - Recommendation 1.2 – Organize the HTML code logically and semantically;

• - Recommendation 1.3 – Use heading levels correctly;

• - Recommendation 1.4 – Order reading and tabulation logically and intuitively;

• - Recommendation 1.8 – Divide the information areas;

• - Recommendation 2.1 - Make all page functions available via keyboard;

• - Recommendation 2.3 - Do not create pages with periodic automatic updates;

• - Recommendation 2.7 – Ensure user control over temporal changes to the content;

• - Recommendation 3.4 – Inform the user about their location on the page;

• - Recommendation 3.5 – Describe links clearly and succinctly;

• - Recommendation 3.6 – Provide text alternatives for site images;

• - Recommendation 3.11 – Ensure the readability and comprehension of information;

• - Recommendation 3.12 – Provide an explanation for acronyms, abbreviations, and uncommon words;

• - Recommendation 4.1 – Offer minimum contrast between background and foreground;

• - Recommendation 4.2 – Do not use only color or other sensory characteristics to differentiate elements;
• - Recommendation 6.2 – Associate labels with their fields;

• - Recommendation 6.3 – Establish a logical navigation order;

• - Recommendation 6.5 – Provide instructions for data entry;

• - Recommendation 6.6 – Identify and describe data entry errors and confirm the submission of information.

There are some recommendations that are covered by the technology itself, such as frameworks, programming language, etc., and therefore were not listed as accessibility suitability concerns.

We validated the Sprint prototype in a usability test with 5 users and achieved an excellent result. All participants were able to complete 100% of the tasks, and we received many compliments and important feedback on the functionalities. However, for the first releases of the CONECTA-TCU system, we simplified some functionalities and operations. After one year of launch, the impact was considerable, and among the gains, we can highlight:

• - Case inquiries, rulings, and determinations are immediate;

• - Communications science time reduced from 15 days to 1.8 days;

• - Greater transparency: members of the Public Prosecutor's Office, police officers, the Attorney General's Office, and lawyers with full access to case files, without bureaucracy and automatically;

• - Bringing the jurisdictional units, lawyers, authorities and other stakeholders closer to the TCU;

• - Reduced costs, with direct delivery of information to the recipient, without intermediaries;

• - Resource optimization and streamlining of activities;

• - With approximately 23,000 external users of CONECTA-TCU, more than 6,000 interact directly with it and almost 17,000 consume information from the system.

Below we can see some figures from CONECTA-TCU:

For a system as relevant as CONECTA-TCU, we decided to create an exclusive brand, and for that, we based ourselves on three pillars that motivated the creation of the system: to be a communication channel to integrate and bring closer the TCU, the citizen and the public bodies.

Thus, we had three main requirements:communication, integration and approximation.In general, the requirements serve as inspiration for the creation of a symbol or logo, and although the levels of abstraction are quite high in this type of project, we are able to create a form with strong visual impact.

"The platform is quite intuitive and easy to use, as it should be. It truly establishes a 'connection' between the unit and the TCU, especially regarding communications, rulings, and access to case files."

Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) - Tiago Hideki Niwa, Head of Internal Audit

"Conecta provided a greater understanding of the processes and audits related to Eletrobras, as well as the organization of determinations and rulings."

Eletrobras - Márcia Pinheiro, Manager of the Department for Customer Service to Regulatory entity

“The system was a watershed moment for the Attorney General's Office... The time it takes to obtain information has been drastically reduced... Now, the platform allows automatic access through self-declaration. This improvement was a game-changer because today we can focus on the content and no longer on access to the processes.”

 Advocacia-Geral da União (AGU) - Rodrigo Paiva, Legal advisor to the Union in Espírito Santo.

“Previously, the TCU's requests came in through different channels, and now they are all centralized in Conecta, which allows for more comprehensive support to the higher offices. The flow of information has become much more streamlined.” 

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Development (Mapa) - Cláudio Torquato, head of the Special Advisory Office for Internal Control

"The platform has improved communication between FNDE and TCU, making it more practical and efficient."

Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação (FNDE) - Internal Audit Information Management and Demand Control Division

It was two long years of hard work, many meetings, research, process facilitation, workflow and screen design, trial and error. One of the biggest challenges I faced was bringing the team into the world of user experience processes, explaining the importance of each step and its benefits, and thus, moving towards a UX culture. Personally, I greatly improved my repertoire of tools, as working with UX in the public sector requires many adaptations, in addition to all the changes and adaptations that working from home brought.

I believe the most important lesson learned from a large project like this was that, by having the opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary team, I better understood the time and process constraints of people from various areas such as developers, Product Owners, requirements managers, etc. I also understood what types of information I can obtain, what to expect, and what to delegate to and from each of these profiles. Even though I wasn't in a product management position, I had the opportunity to manage the UX Design processes of the CONECTA-TCU system, which were my responsibility, from research to delivery for development.

With the initial deliveries completed, the next steps are:

• - Expand the number of accredited bodies and legal representatives with access to CONECTA-TCU;

• - To allow citizens to access non-confidential information regarding legal proceedings, court decisions, and rulings;

• - Creation of the Design System for the CONECTA-TCU system.