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Winner · Service ExperienceEditors’ ChoiceDistinction · Accessibility

Publica

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Overall UXE Score

8.74

16 jurors · +0.4 vs season average

Publica city services homepage with a large search field and request tracker
Recognition
Editors’ Choice
Recognized
12 Nov 2025
Season
Quarter 4, 2025
Studio
Civic Form, Tallinn
Categories
Service Experience · Public Services · Inclusive & Ethical Design · Web Experience · Platform
Platforms
Web

01/Overview

A city services portal designed task-first, in plain language and six languages, meeting WCAG 2.2 AA throughout.

Publica replaced a 4,000-page municipal website with a task-first portal. Residents don’t need to know which department handles what; they type what they need and get there.

Every request — from a broken streetlight to a parking permit — gets a reference number and a visible, plain-language status timeline, so nobody has to phone the city to ask what happened.

Content was rewritten to a reading age of 12 and translated into six languages by native speakers, not machines.

Client
City of Aldermoor · Local government
Audience
All 410,000 residents, including people with low digital confidence
Industry
Public Services
Platforms
Web
Status
Live since September 2025
Markets
Aldermoor (city)
Languages
6 — English, Estonian, Russian, Ukrainian, Finnish, Arabic

02/Honors

Recognized by the editors. Awarded by the jury.

Recognition

Editors’ Choice

The editors’ highest recognition, for work that changes how its category should be designed.

Conferred by the editors on 12 Nov 2025 · minimum UXE 8.5

Distinctions

  • Distinction · Accessibility

    Accessibility scored 9.6 — the bar is 9.0.

Awards · Quarter 4, 2025

Season results

Results announced 15 Jan 2026 by the category juries.

03/Jury verdict

In the jury’s words.

“Publica is public service in the truest sense: organised around residents rather than the org chart, and accessible to everyone from day one.”

Kwabena Asante

Service Design Lead, Adinkra Digital · Ghana

On behalf of 16 jurors

04/Score breakdown

How the jury scored it.

Overall UXE Score+0.4 vs Q4 2025 average
8.74
Strongest criterionAccessibility
9.6
Jury agreementaverage spread ±0.41
Moderate
Jurorsof Q4 2025’s panel
16
UsabilityIAUIInteractionPerformanceA11yLearnability
UXE Fingerprint · scale 5–10 from center
CriterionScorevs avg

  1. Usability

    Can people complete what they came to do — efficiently, confidently and without error?

    8.9+0.4

  2. Information Architecture

    Is content organized, labeled and navigable in the way people actually think?

    Jury noteSixty tasks replace four thousand pages; nobody needs to know the org chart.

    9.1+0.7

  3. UI & Consistency

    Is the visual language coherent and purposeful across every screen and state?

    8.2±0.0

  4. Interaction & Feedback

    Does every action respond clearly, promptly and meaningfully?

    Jury noteFunctional rather than delightful — the right call, though some transitions feel abrupt.

    8.0−0.1

  5. Performance

    Does it feel fast — perceived and measured — on real devices and networks?

    8.6+0.4

  6. Accessibility

    Can everyone use it, including people relying on assistive technology?

    Jury noteThe highest accessibility score the jury has awarded — AA throughout, AAA where it matters.

    9.6+1.3

  7. Learnability

    How quickly does a first-time user become a confident one?

    8.8+0.3

Scores are the mean of 16 jurors. Ticks mark the Q4 2025 average across 4 recognized projects.

05/The jury

16 ballots

Every vote, on the record.

Each juror scored Publica independently, from 1 to 10 on every criterion. Nothing is weighted by seniority and no score is discarded — the published result is simply their mean.

Score distributionJury agreement moderate · highest single score 10.0 (Accessibility)

One juror Jury mean

Individual jury votes for Publica, highest overall first
JurorUsabIAUIInterPerfA11yLearnOverall
Lukas BrennerPrincipal Product Designer, Feldwerk · DE9.79.48.28.99.010.09.89.29
Tomasz WójcikMotion Design Lead, Kadr Studio · PL8.99.49.38.79.49.89.59.29
Priya RamanHead of Product Design, Tessera Cloud · IN9.39.57.68.48.79.89.08.90
Freya HolmPrincipal Researcher, Salt Research · DK9.09.58.58.18.99.68.48.86
Jonas LindDesign Engineer, Fjordline Systems · SE9.59.97.57.58.99.39.18.81
Min-jun ChoDesign Lead, Seoul Form · KR9.28.68.37.89.39.88.78.81
Ravi MenonWeb Performance Engineer, Quickline · SG8.99.48.27.49.09.88.78.77
Mei TanakaUX Research Lead, Hoshi Labs · JP8.39.48.68.08.49.98.68.74
Yusuf DemirProduct Design Manager, Kuzey Labs · TR8.79.58.38.08.39.48.78.70
Hana NovákováStaff Product Designer, Brno Works · CZ9.18.58.08.38.19.89.08.69
Amara NwosuDesign Director, Kestrel & Vale · GB8.98.68.67.98.69.48.78.67
Lea FischerDesign Systems Lead, Kanton Group · CH8.79.07.97.98.09.78.98.59
Ana CostaInclusive Design Researcher, Maré Digital · PT8.98.68.27.88.59.48.48.54
Kwabena AsanteVerdictService Design Lead, Adinkra Digital · GH7.98.38.58.28.19.68.78.47
Camille RouxCreative Director, Atelier Nuit · FR8.89.37.57.38.49.38.68.46
Mateo ÁlvarezInteraction Designer, Lumbre · MX8.68.78.07.88.09.08.08.30
Jury mean8.99.18.28.08.69.68.88.74
Spread (σ)±0.42±0.46±0.45±0.42±0.44±0.26±0.42±0.26

marks each juror’s area of expertise. Deeper tint, higher score.

  1. 01

    Submitted

    20 Oct

    Entry received, free of charge

  2. 02

    Jury scoring

    26 Oct – 10 Nov

    16 independent ballots

  3. 03

    Recognized

    12 Nov 2025

    Editors’ Choice

  4. 04

    Awards

    15 Jan 2026

    Winner · Service Experience

06/Screens

2 screens

The product, screen by screen.

Homepage with task search and most requested services
01Home & task search
Request tracker with status timeline and permit renewal
02Request tracker

07/Case study

From problem to proof.

The challenge

The old site was organised by department. Residents couldn’t find services, called the contact centre instead, and requests disappeared into a black box once submitted.

The approach

Civic Form reorganised everything around the 60 tasks that make up 90% of demand, rewrote all content in plain language, and made request status public and predictable.

Research

  • Contact-centre analysis

    210,000 calls categorised by intent

  • Pop-up research

    Library and market sessions with 180 residents

  • Assisted-digital testing

    40 sessions with low-confidence users and screen-reader users

Key insights

  1. 01

    Residents describe tasks, not departments.

  2. 02

    “Where is my request?” was the single most common reason to call.

  3. 03

    Plain language helped every group, not only those with low literacy.

Outcomes

  • −43%

    Contact-centre calls

    first 6 months

  • 89%

    Task completion

    unmoderated testing, n=600

  • 6

    Languages

    human-translated, reading age 12

Outcomes are reported by the submitting team and reviewed by the jury.

08/Accessibility & performance

Built for everyone, on any device.

Accessibility

WCAG 2.2 AA

Audited by Estonian Information System Authority (external audit), August 2025

9.6

Jury

  • Meets WCAG 2.2 AA throughout, with several AAA criteria (contrast, reading level)
  • Strong visible focus ring on every interactive element
  • Tested with JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver and TalkBack
  • Right-to-left layout for Arabic

Known gaps

None disclosed or found by the jury.

Performance

4 of 4 within budget

Low-end Android on 3G, lab median of 10 runs

8.6

Jury

Performance metrics against budget
MetricMeasuredBudget
Largest Contentful Paint1.6 s (within budget)≤ 2.5 s
Interaction to Next Paint70 ms (within budget)≤ 200 ms
Cumulative Layout Shift0.00 (within budget)≤ 0.1
Page weight (home)310 KB (within budget)≤ 500 KB

Within budget Over budget

09/Design system

Aldermoor Design System, the system behind Publica.

System
Aldermoor Design System
Components
44
Design tokens
120

Color

  • #0B57D0

    Civic blue

  • #0B1B33

    Navy

  • #FFD23F

    Focus yellow

  • #EAF1FE

    Ice

  • #1A7F4B

    Done

Typography

  • Public Sans

    Interface & content

    Google Fonts

UX patterns

  • Task-based navigation
  • Search
  • Status timelines
  • Plain language
  • Multilingual

10/Credits

The people who made it.

Studio

Civic Form

Tallinn, Estonia

Public-sector service design, built on plain language and accessibility by default.

Founded
2018
Team
11–50
Recognized
1
civicform.example

Team

  • Kadri TammService Design Lead
  • Mart KaskInteraction Designer
  • Liis SaarContent Designer
  • Andres RebaneAccessibility Lead
  • Oleksandra IvanenkoLocalisation
Client
City of Aldermoor
Industry
Local government

Built with

  • Next.js
  • Drupal (headless)
  • Elasticsearch
  • GOV.UK Frontend patterns
  • Figma

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