A mobile app that will allow Barbadians to track their National Insurance contributions and benefits is set to launch by the end of the year, and the people it is meant to serve are helping design it.
The National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS), in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), on Wednesday engaged key stakeholders, including pensioners, in a Design Thinking workshop which was designed to capture and record user feedback to support the app’s design.
“Our focus has to be . . . on real people, real Barbadians, and how we are digitising to improve their lives — everyday contributors, pensioners, the self-employed, employers, and the staff of the NISSS as well,” said IDB Country Representative Carina Cockburn at the Hilton Barbados Resort.
The app will allow contributors to view their benefit entitlements, monitor their contribution history, and verify whether payments are being made on their behalf, and self-employed individuals will also be able to track their own payments, while pensioners will have better access to their records from their mobile phones.
The design thinking approach, according to Cockburn, ensures the app will be effective and sustainable. It takes a user-first approach, focusing on listening and understanding the real needs and frustrations of future users before developing features or writing code.
“The IDB supported the development of a digital transformation roadmap, and with the leadership of the NISSS team, we now have a dedicated digital transformation unit right inside the organisation . . . . With this app we’re co-designing, we’re moving from vision to products, to something people can actually hold in their hands, or, more realistically, scroll through while waiting in line at the supermarkets or doing other everyday activities,” she explained.
Minister of Labour, Social Security and the Third Sector, Colin Jordan, explained the app’s tentative launch deadline later in the year, while on the sidelines of the workshop.
He said: “We’re actually late in terms of a mobile application, but we’re doing it nonetheless, because we know that there are a lot of people—particularly younger people, but a lot of slightly older people as well—who are pretty adept at using applications . . . and one of the reasons why we have pensioners here is because we want their input as well.”
“We want to make sure that the application, whenever it is finished and launched, not only speaks to young people, but the application is also one that has benefited from the design, from the input of older people, people who are currently pensioners,” Jordan added.
The minister also sought to reassure pensioners who may not be technologically inclined that other avenues for accessing information will remain available.
Participants at the NISSS’ Design Thinking Workshop. (LG)
“The technology is not the only way of accessing the information. We will not be taking off the telephones. We will not be discontinuing the email address. We will not take down the website. This is an additional avenue, and we’re not forcing anybody to use it, but we know that this is 2025,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer of the NISSS, Kim Tudor, explained that the workshop encourages creative, user-driven solutions.
“The mobile app will be a key part of our digital transformation and today gives us an opportunity to shape it together, ensuring that it reflects the real needs and the expectations of you, the people we serve. So today is about admiration, creativity, and co-creation. It is your voices that will guide the process and we are truly grateful that you have committed to walking this path with us,” she said.
Minister Jordan urged participants to share any concerns during the workshop.
“You’ve been invited here to share openly. As the minister responsible for social security, I hereby give all of you permission . . . . And I say that to you, hopefully to give you some comfort that when the thought or thoughts cross your mind, you do not hold back.”
He referred to the day’s event as a “quantum leap”, stressing the importance of the app for vulnerable populations.
“The responsibility is on your shoulders to make sure that the outcome of all of this discussion will help those people at those particularly vulnerable points in their lives,” Jordan said. “Let’s work together, recognising that this is a real human-centred work, a people-centred work, and that you, by participating, are making an essential difference as we develop this application to serve the people of this country.” (LG)
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