Guiding the government to digital trust
For more than ten years now, Craftzing experts have been - and still are - guiding the Flemish government on its path to becoming a genuinely digital government. Within this partnership, our experts work closely with Digitaal Vlaanderen, the agency that steers the region's digital transformation, on both new services and large-scale platforms.
Mijn Burgerprofiel, the app that brings every Flemish and local government service together for citizens, is exemplary for what this partnership looks like in practice.
The challenge: moving toward better digital services for Flemish citizens
For decades, the interaction between Flemish citizens and the Flemish government was scattered. People had to find their way through a maze of communication methods and separate portals just to check a government file, download a certificate or apply for a permit.
Digitaal Vlaanderen (“Digital Flanders”), the agency within the government of Flanders that steers its digital transformation, set itself a strategic question with far-reaching consequences: how could the Flemish government offer every Flemish citizen, regardless of which authority they were dealing with, one coherent digital experience, and do so in a way that was inclusive, secure and simple enough for millions of people to actually use?
It’s that digital experience the Craftzing experts, together with the people at Digitaal Vlaanderen, have been building ever since.
The solution: Mijn Burgerprofiel, a coherent digital experience across authorities
In 2018, Craftzing launched the first version of Mijn Burgerprofiel, a single digital counter built to access all Flemish and local government services in one go. From generic functionalities such as eBox messages, notifications and certificates, to Flemish services like service vouchers and a digital wallet, local services such as collection calendars and municipal news, and local add-ons like appointment booking and notifications that individual municipalities can switch on for their own residents. And because every layer lives inside the same environment, citizens only ever need one login and one interface to reach both their Flemish and their local government, no matter how many separate services sit behind the scenes.
Ever since that initial launch, Mijn Burgerprofiel grew into a complete digital ecosystem that seamlessly connects Flemish citizens with their government, and vice-versa. Over the years, numbers showed that Mijn Burgerprofiel was used more and more on mobile devices. Therefore, it was a logical step to create a Mijn Burgerprofiel app, uniting both Flemish and local services.
In addition, each local authority got its own branded version of the app, layering in its own look and local services on top of the shared Flemish foundation, so citizens get one consistent experience wherever they live while still recognising their own municipality.
The Approach: from strategy to sculpting sessions to shipped product
Digitalising a government is not something one can do overnight, let alone a government made up of dozens of agencies and hundreds of local authorities, each with their own systems, forms and digital habits.
Therefore, Craftzing took a full-service role in the partnership with Digitaal Vlaanderen, drawing up the digital strategy and business case, then carrying it through information architecture, UX and UI design, and front-end and mobile development.
The work started back in 2015 with the creation of a solid design system for the desktop version of Mijn Burgerprofiel. We guided Digital Vlaanderen step by step from concept through wireframes and click models to a live product, always working in mixed teams with Digitaal Vlaanderen so decisions stayed close to the people who would use and maintain the platform.
For the app, we could benefit from the existing system, adding all necessary extensions. With a Craftzing product owner and project manager embedded in the project, the team took the app from concept to launch (June 2022) in just seven sprints, and continues to expand it today with new features and improvements.
Our government is constantly moving forward. As a result we are eager to keep building the digital future of the Government of Flanders.
