The moment users stop trusting your service

• Problem Discovery - understanding the trust barriers
• Key Decisions - the choices that shaped the research
• Insights & Outcomes - what the research revealed

Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria wanted to reduce reliance on paper-based and face-to-face identity checks by integrating a digital proof-of-identity service into an existing online certificate application process. The business opportunity was significant: citizens could complete certificate applications end-to-end online, reducing administration costs, travel requirements and processing effort.

The risk was equally significant. Identity verification would be delivered through an external vendor that most citizens had never heard of. If users could not understand who they were interacting with, why personal information was being collected, or how information had been obtained, trust in the service could quickly erode.

My role

I planned and facilitated usability testing, designed and evaluated prototypes, analysed behavioural and attitudinal findings, identified service risks and developed recommendations for improving trust, transparency and continuity across the end-to-end experience.

Treat trust as a design requirement

Most participants supported the idea of verifying identity online and preferred it to paper or in-person alternatives. The challenge was not convincing users to adopt digital verification - it was ensuring the process felt safe, legitimate and understandable. Many problems were not usability failures. They were trust failures.

Investigate the transition between systems

The certificate application journey performed well until participants entered the third-party verification experience. At that moment confidence dropped sharply. Participants did not understand why the external service possessed personal information about them, how that information had been obtained, or what relationship existed between Government and the verification vendor. The weakest part of the experience was not a screen - it was the transition between trusted and unfamiliar services.

Focus on transparency instead of explanation alone

Participants frequently ignored explanatory content but reacted strongly when unexpected events occurred. Research showed that long descriptions would not solve the problem on their own. Users needed visible continuity, stronger branding, clearer status indicators and reassurance that they were still inside a Government transaction. Transparency needed to be embedded into the service experience rather than hidden in disclosure text.

Reduce unnecessary effort and duplication

Participants became frustrated when asked to enter personal information they had already provided earlier in the transaction. They viewed the certificate purchase and identity verification as one service regardless of the underlying systems involved. Duplicate work signalled poor integration and further reduced confidence in the service.

What the research revealed

• Most participants preferred digital identity verification over paper or face-to-face alternatives
• No participants were familiar with the verification vendor
• Participants became uncomfortable when presented with personal history information they did not understand the source of
• Several participants questioned why a credit agency was involved in a Government service
• Duplicate questions reduced satisfaction and increased frustration
• Many participants misunderstood where they were in the overall process and what would happen next
• The verification experience reduced perceived usability compared with earlier certificate application research

Recommendations

• Ensure the entire verification journey maintains a Government look and feel
• Provide continuity of progress and status across both systems
• Pre-populate information already collected
• Explain how identity-verification providers obtain information and why they are trusted
• Improve hand-off points between systems
• Provide personalised next-step instructions based on previous user choices
• Create a clearer end-to-end progress model

What changed

• Identified 19 service-design, usability and trust-related issues before implementation
• Created evidence-based recommendations for preserving trust in digital identity verification
• Demonstrated that trust and transparency were stronger adoption barriers than the technology itself
• Provided a framework for evaluating future government-to-third-party service integrations

Reflection

The most important lesson from this project was that trust is cumulative and fragile. Users built confidence throughout the Government transaction, then rapidly questioned the experience when they encountered an unfamiliar organisation asking for sensitive information.

This project reshaped how I think about service ecosystems. Users do not experience organisational boundaries. They experience one journey. Every transition either reinforces trust or weakens it.