Sector(s)

Project Team

Other organisations involved: 

The Digital Aotearoa Collective (formerly GovZero Aotearoa) 

Team members: 

  • Phillipa Martin - Business analysis, rules mapping, service design and content writing
  • Emil Jeyaratnam - Business analysis, rules mapping and service design
  • Mark Calvert - OpenFisca development
  • Suchi Garg - Drupal technical lead
  • Nicolas Haase - Drupal development
  • Nathania Sudirman - Content loading

Visit the site

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Organizations Involved

Salsa Digital worked with the Digital Aotearoa Collective to create stage 1 of BenefitMe, a website where NZ citizens can check their eligibility for social security benefits. Salsa Digital donated funds and people, working across all areas of this Rules as Code (RaC) project.

Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome)
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Digital Aotearoa Collective’s challenge

The Digital Aotearoa Collective (formerly GovZero Aotearoa) wanted to use Rules as Code (RaC) to code NZ’s Social Security Act. This was an important project for the collective, which aims to address injustice and improve wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

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Digital Aotearoa Collective’s transformation — service design, OpenFisca coding and website build

Salsa Digital came on board in February 2022 (see our blog, Introducing the GovZero Rules As Code project). Salsa Digital Founder and Director, Alfred Deeb, donated NZ$20K and three team members at 8 hours/week each. The goal was to build the first iteration of a codified version of the NZ Social Security Act.

The project had three main stages/themes:

  1. Rules mapping
  2. OpenFisca coding
  3. Service design and site build

Rules mapping

We started by analysing the NZ Social Security Act (a big task!). Using Miro, our first pass looked at the legislation to identify:

  • Eligibility criteria
  • Eligibility logic
  • Calculator logic

Support living payment

Our second pass defined variables and set up test cases for each benefit.

The process of analysing the rules was quite time consuming. See our blog, How to turn legislation into Rules As Code for more information.

Next, we split into two groups. One to focus on the OpenFisca coding and the other to work on the service design, including visual design and content.

Salsa Digital had one person working in the OpenFisca stream and two in the service design stream.

OpenFisca coding

In total, there were four developers working in the OpenFisca stream, including one of the original, French OpenFisca developers.

The first four social security payments were identified as:

  • Jobseeker
  • Sole Parent Support
  • Disability Allowance
  • Accommodation Supplement

The work was divided, with a lot of collaboration across shared entities, definitions, etc.

Service design and site build

The service design stream started by brainstorming potential ways users could interact with the rules. The idea of dropdown fields and sliders was mocked up in Figma, with some other basic pages as wireframes.

A life events approach was also explored.

These wireframes were then user-tested with people who work and volunteer at NZ’s Citizens Advice Bureau and other key advocacy organisations.

From here the design was further refined.

MyStory design

With the goal of getting the first four services up and running by the end of November2022 (in line with the project’s Cardano grant) we then needed to choose the technology. Ultimately, with the project heavily front-loaded into the rules analysis and early OpenFisca coding, we needed to look at the fastest option to build a user interface…in six weeks!

The broader team looked at several options but in the end CivicTheme and Drupal were chosen, leveraging the Drupal OpenFisca module developed by Salsa Digital. 

Designs were re-worked in Figma to create a minimal viable product (MVP) that leveraged out-of-the-box CivicTheme components.

At the same time, several names for the service were identified and the final one chosen: BenefitMe.

My Story — the interactive user interface

The My Story page was changed into a customised webform, using the OpenFisca Drupal module. Salsa Digital’s Drupal developers and a tech lead were brought into the project for the final 6 weeks, to help ensure the website could go live. These new members were once again ‘gifted’ by Salsa Digital. 

You can explore the form at https://benefitme.nz/get-started/my-story 

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The outcomes — a new RaC website, benefitme.nz

  • A new website, BenefitMe, built with CivicTheme and Drupal
  • An independent website where NZ citizens can go to see what benefits they’re eligible for — putting some power pack into the hands of the public
  • A customised webform that interacts with OpenFisca so people can enter in details to see if they’re eligible for benefits
  • Coding in OpenFisca of JobSeeker, Sole Parent Support, Disability Allowance and Accommodation Supplement
  • A stage 1 deliverable that can be expanded on with additional benefits added and a more customised frontend design
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Why Drupal was chosen

Drupal and CivicTheme were chosen as the fastest way to assemble a site in a short amount of time (6 weeks). Drupal is Salsa Digital’s open source CMS of choice, and the open source CivicTheme is a design system and Drupal 10 theme.

Technical Specifications

Drupal version:

Key modules/theme/distribution used:

Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen

CivicTheme was chosen as a fast build option.