Blog post by Scott McLear, senior digital manager at RoS.

Digital is changing everything, from how we work to how we consume services. Technology is advancing every day, and the way we live our lives is overwhelmingly influenced by the internet. Digital is also significantly better for the environment, saving tonnes of paper every year.

That’s why at Registers of Scotland we have been undergoing digital transformation, moving us from a paper-based organisation to one that always does everything digitally as the first option.

This transformation has led to the development of three new digital products and services. Our teams are regularly out and about talking to our users, testing and designing our new products.

This year we’ve attended events like the Scottish Paralegals Association (SPA) conference and the Scotland Women in Tech (SWiT) event hosted in our new offices in St Vincent Plaza, Glasgow. Attending, and testing our products at events like this gives us the opportunity to discuss directly with the users of our systems, designing around their needs.

Digital Discharge Service

We’ve worked closely with both solicitors and lenders to develop this service so that it delivers according to our customers’ needs. Compared with the old service, Digital Discharge Service (DDS) provides substantial benefits for users:

• DDS is faster – whereas the old system could potentially take months to complete a discharge, the customer journey for both solicitors and lenders with DDS can now be completed in a matter of minutes
• DDS is more convenient and efficient – it works with our existing online systems to centralise the entire discharge process in a single digital portal
• DDS is very simple to use – it provides an intuitive step-by-step solution that integrates with our data records, and allows for all steps of the discharge to be done digitally
• DDS is more cost-effective – you’ll save £10 with each transaction completed via DDS.

Our Digital Discharge Service provides a completely new customer experience for discharging mortgage securities. It replaces the antiquated paper-based process with a fully digital service that centralises the activities of solicitors, lenders and RoS, all in a single online portal.

Kevin Stewart, Account Manager, Registers of Scotland

ScotLIS

ScotLIS is an online land and information service that will ultimately allow citizens, communities, professionals and business users to find out comprehensive information about any piece of land or property in Scotland with a single enquiry. ScotLIS is currently in private beta, and will move to public beta in the weeks to come.

We are bringing together what are naturally coherent datasets to make it easier for people to access and work with land information. We’re working using Agile methodologies which means we work iteratively identifying user needs, building the product and then responding to their feedback.

Cheryl Hunter, ScotLIS Product Owner, Registers of Scotland

Knowledge Base

Our Knowledge Base website makes our guidance easier to use than ever. The Knowledge Base is our new home for registration guidance and support content. It’s task-based, accessible and searchable, based on user testing and input.

Enhancements include –

• a new site search, with suggested articles, synonyms and spelling error suggestions
• improved readability and page layout
• HTML web pages, replacing our old PDF format for guidance
• in-page navigation menus
• labels to let you know when we update guidance

We’ve developed the Knowledge Base with the user at heart. Through workshops and meetings with internal and external colleagues, we’ve identified who’s using our guidance and how. Our research has informed the structure and style of the content, and it’ll help us to continually update and develop the Knowledge Base.

Scott McLear, Senior Digital Manager, Registers of Scotland

Get in touch!

If you would like to be part of testing any of the products mentioned above, or our website, then why not join our user experience panel?

You can also follow the team via @RegistersOfScot on Twitter and on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube for more updates. Want to comment? Let us know below.