K-water and the Citizens Design Group jointly develop an app

Currently, K-water runs ‘Water Now’, an app that provides real-time water data on the amount of water usage and water bill amount. Water Now is a mobile application K-water launched in Decemeber 2021 to make it easier and simpler for customers to access water information, based on the existing tap water information service of the National Water Information System. It allows customers to view all the water information on the entire water supply process from the production of tap water they are currently using to the delivery to individual housholds, based on the location information of the customer. Previously, customers could view their water bills only on paper or a desktop computer, which fails to offer full and complete real-time water usage and fees. It was necessary to introduce a mobile water information service to allow customers to access real-time tap water information anytime, anywhere. With half of the customer inquiries that the Seosan Branch received in 2021 were about water bills, K-water decided to develop a mobile water information service in order to address this problem.
With the goal of ‘creating a mobile tap water service based on citizens’ areas of interest and their needs, ordinary citizens were invited to participate in the development of the service to provide a user-friendly service. The Citizens Design Group consisting of citizens, municipal governments, and internal and third-party experts was actively involved in the entire process from development to implementation, evaluation and reflux.

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More water information services close to daily life

The Citizens Design Group identified and selected key water information including the amount of water usage and water fees. Members of the group also formed a consensus that the app should offer additional services including issuing alerts in case of leaks and cut-offs of water supply based on analysis of real-time water use patterns, and safety alerts for households under the auspices of municipal governments. The group worked out a simple and easy-to-use app design that minimizes the number of touches to get to the required information on the app to make it easy for elderly citizens to use the app.
The service was pilot-tested on the residents of Seosan City, South Chungcheong Province. The app helps prevent leaks, freeze and ruptures by issuing immediate push alerts when the amount of water usage exceeds a certain level, based on the customer identification number, while also providing the basic information such as the amount of water usage, water fees, water quality, and freeze, rupture, and leak alerts. In addition, the app also issues alerts for safety check requests for the socially vulnerable class by analyzing water use patterns in real time.
Based on the results of the pilot operation in Seosan City, K-water plans to expand the app nationwide. The mobile app will be launched through 22 local water supply facilities under K-water’s management. K-water also plans to create a standard model for national water information services and provide a platform to municipal governments across the country.
Freeze and rupture alerts will be issued through Water Now, and K-water will develop more tap water information services to make people’s lives better and happier.

※ ‘Water Now’ can be downloaded on the Google Playstore and App Store, and is available to all citizens for free.