Illustrating a More ‘Singaporean’ Digital Identity

From a public housing block to an otter, familiar sights and scenes of Singapore help create a delightful user experience in the redesigned Singpass app.

Void decks are a common sight at public housing estates of Singapore where most Singaporeans live in. These ground-level spaces are typically open and empty, except for a few sets of public furniture, to allow for various activities like weddings, funerals or simple hangouts with fellow residents. Now, void decks can also be found in the Singpass app!

➜ Read the full story on GovTech’s National Digital Identity Medium account

Not Just for Logging In: Redesigning Singapore’s Digital Identity App

The new Singpass reframes the app’s role as Singapore’s trusted digital identity platform while allowing space for its future expansion.

Every Singaporean and resident holds an identity card as proof of one’s citizenship and identity. Now, they can also have a digital version on their smartphones by downloading the Singpass app.

While this Digital Identity Card (IC) was introduced in Singapore’s national digital identity app in May 2020, few of its then over 2.5 million users knew of its existence then. Singpass had also been associated with simply authenticating and logging into government services online. However, the service set up by the Singapore government in 2003 had always been conceived as a national digital identity platform.

With the rebranding of Singpass in early 2021 to mark its evolution of becoming Singapore’s trusted national digital identity, the designers at Government Technology Agency (GovTech) decided it was timely to redesign the app.

➜ Read the full story on GovTech’s National Digital Identity Medium account

Thinking Ahead, Moving Forward

Entrances manned by security guards. Haphazardly placed paper signage for directions. Navigating endless tape to get in and out of buildings. Getting around the city can feel very much like entering a war zone nowadays. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted our everyday lives but our urban landscape too. The sudden need for new screening protocols has led to many makeshift solutions that have upended the design of places and fragmented them into ugly, awkward and even dead spaces.

While once regarded as temporary inconveniences, measures such as screening and social distancing look likely to become a permanent part of our everyday with cities planning to live with Covid-19 as an endemic disease. How they are integrated into our built environment needs to be re-examined lest they permanently remake the city into a fortress.

➜ Read the full column in CUBES #102 — Rethink, Reinvent