Computas, together with the Directorate for Public Administration and Finance (DFØ), was one of the finalists for the User Experience Award for the new Doffin, Norway’s database for public sector announcements. Doffin is a critical infrastructure for Norwegian businesses and the public sector, and the scope of the announcements in the database corresponds to 740 billion kroner per year.

When the EU Commission introduced new formats for public announcements, known as eForms, in the autumn of 2023, DFØ had to change the way it handled tender announcement forms in the public sector. At the same time as Doffin had to accommodate new announcement forms, DFØ wanted to improve the user experience by giving the database a more user-friendly design and a better user interface.

“In the new Doffin, we have focused heavily on user-friendliness and search. The goal has been to make it easier to have an overview of market opportunities in the public sector”, says Charlotte Kolle, subject matter expert for digital competition and product owner for Doffin at DFØ, adding: “We are very satisfied with the result – both that we managed to meet the deadline and that the user experience and search became so good in such a short time”.

Computas has worked closely with DFØ throughout the process, which John Schneider-Sætrang, senior UX/UI designer at Computas, sees as an important success factor: “It was a major technical challenge, with a complete overhaul of the entire database architecture. Because the task was so extensive, it has been crucial to have good cooperation so that we could realize the user experience we wanted”, says Schneider-Sætrang.

High Priority for User Involvement

The new Doffin makes it easier for suppliers to find relevant procurement tenders and participate in them. The database effectively connects suppliers and contracting authorities, with the aim of stimulating business development and ensuring efficient resource use and transparency.

eForms were introduced because the forms exploit the potential to include more data in announcements. The new format makes it possible to measure the impact of change and the transformative power of the use of public resources in a much better way than before. At the same time, eForms brought about significant changes for Doffin users, who had to deal with a completely new structure of forms, as well as major changes to the functional interface and a new visual expression.

For the team working on the new Doffin, it quickly became clear that the design and development work had to have a high focus on user involvement. Users were involved through interviews and testing of various prototypes. In addition, the team identified key target groups, which were used to ensure that the needs of the most important users were taken into account when developing the solution. The two main target groups used during the process were public contracting authorities seeking to carry out procurements, and suppliers seeking to find contracts in the public sector.

“Although the project presented major challenges, the fact that we had to start more or less from scratch was also beneficial. It gave us the opportunity to involve and listen to the needs of users in the development of the new Doffin, which enabled us to tailor the solution to the users’ needs”, says Schneider-Sætrang.

New Doffin is Based on the Users’ Needs

Once the needs of the target groups had been mapped out, they were translated into proposed solutions, which were then validated through multiple rounds of testing. One of the requirements sought by users was a clear overview of all the different types of announcements, as well as an understanding of how they differed. In addition, users wanted a clearer visualization of the different phases of a procurement process, and an understanding of which types of announcements belonged in each phase.

“In the solution, there is now a clearer marking of types and phases on all individual announcements, and a dedicated guidance page has been developed that provides excellent support to users,’ says Kolle, adding:

“A more efficient user interface and better-tailored user tasks will support the goals of the new Doffin: fairer competition through transparency and trust, as well as facilitating innovation, sustainability, and business development.

Interviews and feedback from our primary target groups provided the foundation for the development of the new Doffin. By leveraging user insights and experiences from the old solution, the project team was able to identify specific challenges that needed to be addressed and prioritized, creating a sense of security throughout the process.

“User testing was conducted iteratively in all development sprints, ensuring that insights were continuously used to refine the user experience up until launch. This has created a sense of confidence and certainty that we have achieved high user adoption with the new solution”, says Schneider-Sætrang.

Nominated for the User Experience Award

User feedback clearly indicates that the new Doffin is in a completely different league when it comes to user experience. For their work on the new Doffin, Computas and DFØ were one of two finalists for the User Experience Award. This award honors developers, designers, and organizations that have created digital solutions that meet the principles of universal design, good design, and excellent user experiences. The User Experience Award is part of the government’s action plan for universal design 2021-2025: “Sustainability and equal opportunities – a universally designed Norway.”

Computas has worked closely with DFØ for several years on many different projects, which proved invaluable in the development of the new Doffin. “The close collaboration throughout the project, as well as our prior familiarity with each other, made it much easier to succeed,” says Kolle, adding that the work to improve user experiences is ongoing:

“We continue to work on making Doffin a more efficient tool by listening to user feedback, conducting user tests, and monitoring the actual use of the new Doffin, so that we can learn from user behavior patterns.”

Schneider-Sætrang agrees and explains that Computas, together with DFØ, will continue to work to optimize the database:

“We have gathered a lot of experience during the development of the new Doffin, both through usage and input from users. This has been the starting point for many improvements already, and will continue to be a starting point for ongoing improvements in the future. In this way, we will continuously work to ensure that usability is at its peak”, he concludes.