Government websites often fail at one simple job: helping people find what they need quickly.
In practice many public-sector sites are built around institutional structure, not real user needs. Information is split by ministries, departments, legal categories, and administrative logic. Users, meanwhile, arrive with a very different mindset. They are not asking, “Which office owns this policy?” They are asking, “What support can I get right now?”
That was exactly my impression when I looked at demografija.info. Site displays demographic measures for all counties, municipalities and cities in Croatia. The information exists, but it is not easy to scan, compare, or personalize. A parent with limited time should not have to dig through all the data just to understand which demographic measures apply to their situation.
So I treated it as a UX problem.
In 48 hours, I built a simple MVP focused on one core idea: instead of forcing users to browse government structures, let them describe their family situation and instantly get a relevant list of measures. The experience is intentionally minimal. A user enters a few details about their household, optionally selects a location, and gets a clearer, more useful results view.
Better UX in the public sector is often not about “more features”. It is about removing confusion, shortening the path to an answer, and respecting the user’s time.
The bigger lesson is that bad government UX is rarely caused by lack of information. More often, it comes from poor framing. Services are designed around administration instead of people. Once you switch the perspective to the user’s real-life goal, the solution becomes much simpler.
Public information should feel usable and relevant to individual situation. Sometimes it takes 48 hours, a clear problem statement, and the willingness to design from the citizen’s point of view.