
Dutch Police
A chatbot interface that reduced frontline call volume by 15%
Year
2023
Timeline
3 months
Category
Security
Role
Senior UX/UI designer
Problem statement
The Dutch police were managing a high volume of routine public inquiries through human representatives — a setup that was slow, costly, and leaving citizens frustrated. The goal was to introduce a chatbot (Wout) that could handle common requests while feeling accessible to a broad, diverse public audience across all ages and digital literacy levels.
Approach
I led the UI design of the chatbot interface as Senior UX Designer at Capgemini. I worked in close collaboration with a separate conversational design team, with clear ownership: they handled dialogue flows, I owned the interface that brought them to life. I opened the discovery phase with interviews and surveys across a representative cross-section of the Dutch public to understand what people actually needed from a police-facing service: speed, clarity, and confidence that their issue was being handled. In the define phase I translated these needs into clear UI requirements — simplicity and intuitiveness were non-negotiable given the diversity of the user base. From there I designed a clean, categorised interface with prominent search, supporting icons and imagery to reduce cognitive load, and an interaction model that didn't require users to know exactly what to type. In the deliver phase I ran iterative usability tests with target users, refining the design based on each round of feedback until the interface was genuinely accessible to the least digitally confident person in the room.
Results
After implementation, the Dutch police saw a 15% reduction in calls handled by human representatives. Internal feedback highlighted measurable improvements in communication efficiency and the quality of public interactions.
Conclusion
Designing for the general public means designing for everyone. You can't assume anything. Every design decision has to hold up against the least digitally confident person in the room — and that discipline makes you a better designer across the board.








