The city offered plenty of useful digital services. Residents just couldn’t find them, so they kept calling and coming in.
Payments, permits, requests and status tracking each lived in a separate system. Residents had to know which one to use, got confused, and fell back on phone calls and service centers. For the city, that meant low digital adoption, duplicated work across departments and high operational costs.
Fixing individual flows wouldn’t have been enough. Even residents who completed a task didn’t come back.
The real challenge was redesigning the platform as a single, reliable product, one residents could recognize, trust, and return to.
The old system: home page, log-in, sign-up and the city tax payment page.
Four principles guided every decision. Each design below names the one it applies.
Residents shouldn’t need to know the city’s internal structure to use its services.
Familiar patterns, with municipal terminology replaced by words residents use.
Clear status, history and next steps are what bring people back.
New services and new municipalities without redesigning the experience.
I reorganized navigation and content around what residents want to do: pay, apply, report, follow up. The home page leads with what needs attention, then shows what’s happening in the city.
The navigation grouped by intent, and the home page that leads with what needs attention.
I designed a flexible visual framework: each municipality brings its own logo, colors, fonts and icon style, while the structure and interactions stay the same.
Same system, three municipalities: Holon, Kiryat Ata and Harish.
I added reasons to come back, like city events and updates, and deep views for each area of life: assets, water and personal details, each with a clear summary first.
The assets, water and personal details pages.
Residents see one balance that’s clearly made of separate payments, choose which ones to pay now, pay once, and get a receipt from each supplier, with what’s left still visible.
The multiple-payments flow: city tax and water paid together, the vet charge left for later.
Separate systems for every service, and calls to service centers.
One place to pay city bills, buy tickets to city events, see payment history, and submit and track requests.
Low adoption, duplicated work across departments.
Several municipalities asked to join as pilot cities and keep developing the system together.
Visits only when a payment was due.
More than a payment page: a personal space where residents keep up with what’s happening around them.
Create the research you don’t have. I had no time, opportunity or management support to run user research, so I worked with what I had: managers from every area the system touches, from property tax and water to education and customer service. If I couldn’t reach residents directly, I could reach the people who know them best, and who are residents themselves, so they gave input from both sides. That process taught me a lot and produced the insights the design is built on.
Available for new opportunities
The city offered plenty of useful digital services. Residents just couldn’t find them, so they kept calling and coming in.
Payments, permits, requests and status tracking each lived in a separate system. Residents had to know which one to use, got confused, and fell back on phone calls and service centers. For the city, that meant low digital adoption, duplicated work across departments and high operational costs.
Fixing individual flows wouldn’t have been enough. Even residents who completed a task didn’t come back.
The real challenge was redesigning the platform as a single, reliable product, one residents could recognize, trust, and return to.
The old system: home page, log-in, sign-up and the city tax payment page.
Four principles guided every decision. Each design below names the one it applies.
Residents shouldn’t need to know the city’s internal structure to use its services.
Familiar patterns, with municipal terminology replaced by words residents use.
Clear status, history and next steps are what bring people back.
New services and new municipalities without redesigning the experience.
I reorganized navigation and content around what residents want to do: pay, apply, report, follow up. The home page leads with what needs attention, then shows what’s happening in the city.
The navigation, grouped by what residents want to do.
I designed a flexible visual framework: each municipality brings its own logo, colors, fonts and icon style, while the structure and interactions stay the same.
Same system, three municipalities: Holon, Kiryat Ata and Harish.
I added reasons to come back, like city events and updates, and deep views for each area of life: assets, water and personal details, each with a clear summary first.
The assets, water and personal details pages.
Residents see one balance that’s clearly made of separate payments, choose which ones to pay now, pay once, and get a receipt from each supplier, with what’s left still visible.
The multiple-payments flow: city tax and water paid together, the vet charge left for later.
BEFORESeparate systems for every service, and calls to service centers.
AFTER →One place to pay city bills, buy tickets to city events, see payment history, and submit and track requests.
BEFORELow adoption, duplicated work across departments.
AFTER →Several municipalities asked to join as pilot cities and keep developing the system together.
BEFOREVisits only when a payment was due.
AFTER →More than a payment page: a personal space where residents keep up with what’s happening around them.
Create the research you don’t have. I had no time, opportunity or management support to run user research, so I worked with what I had: managers from every area the system touches, from property tax and water to education and customer service. If I couldn’t reach residents directly, I could reach the people who know them best, and who are residents themselves, so they gave input from both sides. That process taught me a lot and produced the insights the design is built on.
Available for new opportunities
