This is the first step of digitization: Putting electricity on the paper. But it's only the beginning. For the long-tail it may be good enough. But for lots of

This is the first step of digitization: Putting electricity on the paper. But it's only the beginning. For the long-tail it may be good enough. But for lots of government forms there are so much more that can be done. Like, we discovered some absurd amount of forms sent to us (like 90% or so) had errors that actually would make the applicant ineligible for whatever the form was for. Stuff like "if you answered X on Q14.2c, you have to answer Q32.5". All this is something good UX and logic can help make a breeze. Instead of a huuuge form to cover all edge cases, it only expands when veering from the happy-path. Also, next step of digitization is actually getting the data as structured data. So that it's automatically put into whatever software the govemp uses to handle the form. Without that, majority of the amount of time spent from a caseworker can be to just transcribe the form into application before it's actually being worked on. Next step after that is of course to automatically approve/deny stuff. If not for everything, there are lot of simple cases that often don't need much scrutiny. A big step is to actually get the gov to change the process/law. Putting electricity to paper is a small win over the incredible wins with just fixing the process. Like one form I worked on was so complicated (maternity/paternity leave) because the law had basically hundreds of small edge cases accrued over the years. Either to fix a loop-hole, or to help some group of people a bit extra. But that just ends up in regulation not even the experts approving these forms understand. It's a hard battle and can take years. Like, sometimes a new rule the politicians invent will cost far more to implement and execute for the small case, than just making it apply to everyone and grant them some extra money...