Doubled
mobile
use,
Streamlined
UX
and
Cutting
Session
Time
for
CSDD.lv
I led a five-week, mobile-first overhaul of one of Latvia’s most-visited public portals — the Road-Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD.lv)
By distilling dense government workflows into a radically simpler and leaner user journeys, we (agency team of 4) turned complex public-sector services into a modern, accessible experience that people actually enjoy using.
Ok, but What is CSDD.lv?
The Latvian platform for transportation services and information
Before
After
CSDD.lv is Latvia’s go-to platform for transportation services and information — from license renewals to vehicle registration. Its audience is incredibly broad: teens applying for a learner’s permit, elderly drivers checking inspection dates, car dealers, and many more.
Some numbers for context
300K+
Visits per month
More than 15% of Latvia’s total population
26
Number of branches
in Latvia
610+
Total number of employees
in 2016
The Problem & Why it had to change?
Friction at Every Tap —
Inaccessible, Unsearchable, Unreadable.
The redesign opportunity wasn’t just cosmetic — it was a chance to rebuild information architecture, enforce a unified style system, and meet rising user expectations for self-service speed and inclusivity. A full redesign offered a chance to unify the brand, slash task depth, cut support calls, and future-proof the platform for a growing mobile audience.
The site’s fragmented experience eroded user trust, clogged support channels, and failed modern accessibility and mobile standards—putting CSDD at reputational and compliance risk.
Research & Insights
Finding the root cause
What We Learned
Our research spanned across user journey mapping, analytics, content audit, qualitative testing, stakeholder interviews and a review of global best practices for public sector sites.
The public sector often speaks a different language… for example — officially it’s a ‘temporary driving permit’, but people in Latvia call it simply ‘white licence’. If you search ‘white licence’ on the old CSDD site and nothing comes up.
Paraphrased from 05:35 mark, Why Design (episode “Public Service Design in Latvia — Meant for Everyone, Sometimes Incomprehensible”), Latvian Television, 27 Jan 2020
Artis Krilovs,
CEO of WRONG Digital
Given our tight timeline, we deliberately chose not to tackle every pain-point highlighted across forums and social media. Instead, we concentrated on the fundamentals—accessibility, information architecture, service design and core usability. By resolving the most critical issues and simplifying key user journeys, we laid solid building blocks for future iterations and ongoing improvement.
Design process
Four design principles
under tight deadlines
Our team agreed on some basic principles that helped us go throug the process
01
Design for extremes
Increased tap targets, plain-language labels, linear steps; clear hover and down states. WCAG AA compatability
02
Leaner flows
Top tasks now require fewer taps; vehicle-inspection lookup trimmed to a single field.
03
Content-first IA
Merged duplicates, removed cruft, flattened navigation to three levels.
04
Emphasis on search
Prominent header bar powered by a typo-tolerant engine.
Solution
What the new
experience feels like
Clean, Flat, Easy to use on any device, with muted colors that make it feel modern, clear, and trustworthy
01
Layout and Content
consolidation
Layout
18x reduction in layouts
More than 110+ unique layout pages reduced to six.
Content
95% +
of content fit into four major content sections – Vehicle, Driver, Road safety, About Us
02
Mobile-first
One-column layout with big tap-friendly buttons and links
03
Search accepts natural-
language queries
and suggest next step
instantly
We introduced a new search engine for the site. New functionality allows users to use their natural language – phrases, words and even acronms. Main focus areas – simplicity and ease of use
04
Generous white space, a tidy 4-pt grid and underlined links make the layout easy to scan, while the brand-green buttons (7.93 : 1 contrast), text sizes, text colors and focus states all meet WCAG 2.1 AA for full accessibility. Min tap areas for the buttons and UI components are 44 px
The Impact
Did it work?
Our team took a closer look at some of the initially set KPI’s and we were pleasently surprised that
Key KPI's
Award
Latvian Design Award — Special Prize (Latvia’s national design competition; site launched 2016, awarded in 2018)
Further Impact
E-services built on our design system gets “Best Government Digital Transformation” award
The e-services that won Latvia’s 2018 Platīna Pele for Best Government Digital Transformation were developed by other teams—but they relied on the layout grid, design system, and accessibility tokens we established during the 2016 redesign.
Framework still powering 29 e-services, 10 years later
The sitemap and component set we shipped in 2016 are still the spine of CSDD.lv. Since launch the site has grown to 29 e-services without a messy redesign. Registered users climbed from 460 000 to 650 000, suggesting the foundation aged well.