Ukraine’s new government is taking serious steps to digitize its state services.
The newly-formed Ministry of Digital Transformation has already unveiled a brand image named Diia, under which the government will provide Ukrainians with e-services.
The ministry didn’t come up with the brand on its own though. It hired the local marketing agency Fedoriv and design bureau Spiilka to develop the style, including fonts, colors, logos, mottos and a detailed strategy — the visual and practical basis for the roll-out of the country’s e-government.
“This is the first time when people from business like us were given access to a usually highly political project,” Maksym Iliukhin, a strategist at Fedoriv, says.
Fedoriv and Spiilka are implementing digitization around the image of an ordinary Ukrainian who, for example, needs to get a marriage certificate, to register as an entrepreneur or to change a passport photo — all typical reasons to use government services. The goal is to make this process smooth: no queues, no stress and no corruption.
“We aren’t trying to sell anything like commercial brands do,” Valentin Paniuta, the brand leader at Fedoriv, says. “We are not making a brand for people to like it, but rather just conveniently use it.”
‘Not just pictures’
To start with, Fedoriv and Spiilka are launching a single website (diia.gov.ua) and a mobile application through which Ukrainians can use government services.
But more important than that is that their strategy foresees how the state will communicate and provide the services online — in simple language and simplified government forms, with far less information required from citizens in any particular application.
“These are not just stylish pictures we show,” Paniuta says. “These are principles. The government must become a service.”
The marketers are creating an example by launching the 14 highest priority services, including registration for entrepreneurs, setting up LLCs, construction site legalization and services for new parents.
They will also launch an ad campaign for the services before handing over a guide to Ukraine’s ministries explaining how to make any service digital.
“A huge amount of (officials) will use our algorithm, so we try to make it as detailed and as simple as possible,” Paniuta says. “The guide explains, in particular, how not to transfer bureaucracy online.”
A man walks past the poster promoting Ukraine’s electronic government brand Diia, designed by marketing agency Fedoriv and design bureau Spiilka. Under this brand, the state will provide electronic services in Ukraine. (Ani Kazarian)
Ukrainian, foreign mix
The Ministry of Digital Transformation appeared along with the new government at the end of August, spearheaded by Mykhailo Fedorov who is also a new deputy prime minister.
Fedorov isn’t related to Fedoriv, the marketing agency founded by Andriy Fedoriv. But he came into politics through the marketing business too. He had a small agency called SMMStudio that wound up working on President Zelensky’s campaign in 2019. Now Fedorov has prioritized marketing as an official, asking Fedoriv and Spiilka to think up a marketing strategy for e-government before doing anything else.
The money, “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” according to Paniuta, came through a grant offered to support battling corruption from international donors EGAP, U-LEAD and USAID. This means that Ukraine hasn’t paid anything for designing the brand strategy for e-services, and according to Fedoriv and Spiilka, the source of the funding adds an extra layer of responsibility because the donors scrutinize their work.
“They like to count money and to get something for it,” Paniuta says. “This adds responsibility to everybody.”
Brand should go first
Usually projects like this start with programmers who code websites and apps, along with passing needed laws where officials agree to transfer particular services online. But the marketing agencies believe this is the wrong approach and prefer to start with a strategy before doing anything else.
“Before going further, we need to explain to everybody where we’re going,” Paniuta says. That is why his colleagues from Spiilka and Minister Fedorov agreed to present the brand on Sept. 27, less than two months after they obtained the grant.
“This was an unreal deadline,” Paniuta says. But he agrees that it was reasonable: The ministry had to show quick results to receive support from society and, in parliament, to pass needed laws. “This was a window of opportunity for them,” the marketer adds.
Today, the two firms continue working on simplification, as well as website design and their guide for government agencies. The Digital Transformation Ministry plans to launch the first e-services in December–February.
What Ukrainians get
Ukraine’s government knows a lot about its citizens: from passport details to the amount of taxes they pay. However, the state stores this information in registers that are not connected.
As a result, to use a government service — applying for a new passport, for example — one has to submit copies of the same documents again and again, and most of the services are not available online.
Even those services that do work on the internet are not entirely digital and are often just copies of offline forms with unnecessary spaces and questions, Iliukhin from Fedoriv says.
“And these services are inconvenient to use,” he says. “It is not convenient from the point of view of the experience of the service itself, and also — to find a service, you need to search through a bunch of websites. The services are scattered randomly on the internet.”
When Diia is up and running, this is going to be fixed, according to the marketers.
Every Ukrainian will have a single online account that compiles all state info in one place. Apart from their passport details, each user will see tax debts, pending court cases, subsidy options and other information the state has on a citizen.
And the services will work from one place. The Diia website will either provide the needed services or redirect users to ministry websites. In cases of redirection, the pages on state websites will have the same look as Diia.
“Everything will be done and will work so that people don’t have an impression that they have fallen into some other obscure website. All will look seamless, done in our design,” Iliukhin says.
Diia will explain in simple language all steps one has to take to obtain a document and will simplify the forms one has to fill out online. Some boxes will be checked automatically by using existing information across various state registries, including name, date of birth, gender and so on.
In this way, for example, Fedoriv and Spiilka have already simplified the form fields needed for registering as an entrepreneur, boiling it down to 12 boxes to fill out, instead of 58.
“Our task here is to rid (people) of fear before the state,” Spiilka design director Vladimir Smirnov says. “People don’t trust government services because they don’t know what to do, how much time it will take, what documents are required. This is where corruption appears: there comes someone who offers you to stop worrying for a bribe. We are fixing it.”
‘No way back’
The team believes “there’s no way back” and that Diia isn’t just a concept that will be forgotten — it will “actually work.”
This optimism, they claim, isn’t connected with the new government and their political views. In fact, the Fedoriv agency representatives claim they supported neither Volodymyr Zelensky nor his Servant of the People political party at the elections this year.
“This isn’t some project done on the eve of some elections. The next elections are in five years. And it’s not just some dude promising something and then getting sacked. There’s already the strategy and promises, and the government, including also President Zelensky, have signed on to them.”
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum. The content is independent of the donors.
