ZugLogin — conversational identity-verification onboarding

Summary

Problem

The Canton of Zug was building an e-government platform (ZugLogin) to let citizens handle services online — scholarships, fishing licences, and more — that previously required an in-person office visit. The hard part: a legally-compliant way to verify citizens' identity online so they could safely access their private data.

What I did

Designed the user-flow architecture and a conversational high-fidelity prototype for the identity-verification onboarding — routing multiple population types through multiple verification paths. I worked within the canton's existing design system and extended it with a new, improved conversational-UI pattern library, making a rigid, security-heavy process feel human and guided. Worked closely with the client through workshops.

Outcome

The flows were validated through user testing. Ultimately, our advisory led the client to the strategically right decision: not to launch a canton-specific solution, but to defer to the forthcoming Swiss national e-ID.

Context

The Canton of Zug built its own e-government platform so citizens could handle digitally what used to require visiting a government office. The central challenge was identity: how do you let citizens access their private government data online in a way that satisfies Swiss identity-verification law — and is usable and trustworthy for the entire public, not just the digitally confident? This was a deep, collaborative engagement with extensive client workshops. I contributed to the user journey alongside other UX consultants, and I owned the conversational high-fidelity prototype and UI.

The challenge

Government identity verification is hard to design well because the constraints pull against each other. It has to be legally rigorous and secure; it has to serve everyone (a public service — varying ages, abilities, and digital literacy); and it has to feel trustworthy, because people are wary of putting private data into a government portal. On top of that, the onboarding had to handle multiple population types — Zug residents, out-of-canton persons, persons not resident in Switzerland, and legal entities — each with different requirements, and it depended on third-party identity providers (e.g. Skribble, SwissSign) for parts of the verification.

Key decisions

One onboarding, mapped across many paths.

I architected the flow to route four population types through the right verification path, converging on two secure delivery modes for the login credentials. The architecture made the complexity legible — user types, submission routes (online, by post, in-person), credential delivery, third-party dependencies, and edge cases all mapped explicitly rather than left implicit.

A conversational, one-question-per-screen experience — built as a reusable pattern library.

Rather than a dense multi-step form, I designed the onboarding as a guided, conversational flow — one question per screen, plain language, a warm tone (“Grüezi und willkommen bei ZugLogin”). For a high-stakes, legally-heavy task facing the entire public — varying ages, abilities, and digital confidence — this is an inclusion decision as much as a usability one: it meets people where they are and lowers the anxiety of a process people are wary of. Rather than reinvent the visual language, I worked within the canton's existing design system and extended it with a new, improved conversational-UI pattern library — the components and interaction patterns the onboarding needed that the system didn't yet have. That kept the experience consistent with the canton's broader digital presence while introducing a guided pattern purpose-built for identity verification.

Security as a designed experience.

The flow translated real security principles into usable interactions — separated delivery of the customer number and password across different channels (email / SMS / registered post), two trust tiers (ZugLogin and the verified ZugLogin Plus), and a clear activation-and-2FA close. Designing around the security requirements, not bolting them on, kept the process both compliant and humane.

Designed for the whole journey, including offline seams.

Identity verification spills off-screen — waiting for a letter, visiting a counter. I designed the transitions that hold the experience together across those gaps, so the journey stayed coherent even where it left the device.

Outcome & reflection

The flows were taken deep enough to validate that a legally-compliant identity onboarding could genuinely work across all those paths, and were tested with users. The project was ultimately not launched — our team advised the client that the forthcoming Swiss national e-ID would make a canton-specific solution unnecessary.

Reflection. This was one of the most complex problems I've worked on — designing a legally-compliant identity onboarding that had to route many different people through many different paths and still feel human. I did a lot of the user-journey and flow work, built the conversational prototype, and extended the canton's design system to support it. It's a project I found genuinely interesting precisely because the constraints were so unforgiving.