We are proud of the work our Kentucky portal has done to let Kentucky residents know how their tax dollars are spent. Read more in this Government Technology article: http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Tracing-the-Flow-of-Tax-Dollars.html
Source: govtech.com
Giving back to community is part of the NIC culture. Sometimes that means putting our services to work to help our community recover from a natural disaster.
Read how we recently went to work to help our fellow citizens in Oklahoma:
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/OKStrong-Website-Aids-Oklahoma-Disaster-Relief.html
http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/29/4254592_olathe-company-behind-oklahomas.html
Source: govtech.com
TEXAS - www.texas.gov
Using the latest web technologies and design philosophies, Texas.gov helps users accomplish their intended purpose as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The all-new Texas.gov features:
Every day, Texas.gov receives 20,000+ visitors, facilitates 6,400+ searches, supports 15,700+ clicks, and processes 72,000+ online transactions.
Listen to Texas Director of Technology Pete Eichorn discuss the latest website enhancements at StateScoop.com.
MISSISSIPPI - www.ms.gov
Beyond Mobile First, the new ms.gov is Future First
The primary mission of the ms.gov redesign was to provide enhanced government information and service delivery to residents, visitors and businesses using the latest and greatest in web-based technologies. New enhancements such as interactive mapping, service quick links, live help and a sleek new design have raised the bar for providing state of the art, real-time services to users. ms.gov now features award-winning functionality including text size adjustment, multi-lingual translation, live help and a Mississippi Showcase.
ms.gov - The Tour from Mississippi Interactive on Vimeo.
ms.gov has over 135 online services listed throughout the site, giving citizens 24-hour access to Mississippi government. With the ability to renew licenses for everything from fishing to nursing, citizens can complete more in less time with the new ms.gov.
UTAH - www.utah.gov
This year, Utah.gov focused on refining its award winning, search-centric design to increase functionality resulting in government savings, increased agency efficiency, and ultimately user satisfaction. Our partners and our team in Utah have made a conscious effort to move beyond responding to change and focus on influencing change — fostering a culture of innovation.
“We continue to simplify things with the portal and part of that was eliminating the scroll in this year’s version,” writes Dave Fletcher, Utah Chief Technology Officer. “Instead of having left side navigation buttons that take you down a parallax-scrolling site, we have used zoom to help drive users to major features. Each of the three main boxes zoom out to provide additional content: news services, location-enabled services, and Utah.gov highlights.”
Major enhancements and features:
Zooming User Interface (ZUI): Users are familiar with ZUI on maps. However, due to technical complexity, ZUI is a new approach for websites. With a myriad of content to display, ZUI allows us to present highlights and let the user zoom in for detail.
Master Data Index (MDI): The MDI allows us to create a record for each piece of high-level content, which we can utilize across multiple sites, and automatically display data to citizens in endless ways.
Smart Search: Utilizing our MDI we provide context rich and time sensitive search results. Our custom-built search mechanism optimizes the results provided based on keywords entered- providing government agencies, online services, social media, and jobs when relevant.
Geolocated Legislative Representatives and Bills: To increase citizen involvement in the democratic process, we now display their senate and house information and bills related to their locality.
Social Media Integration: Users see relevant and timely social media throughout Utah.gov from government agencies and elected officials. Integration allows the message to be seen by interested parties and by more than the limited audience following the social media account.
Responsive Design: While the 2013 revision was designed with tablet in mind first, Utah.gov utilizes HTML5 and CSS3, including animation, to adapt to any browser or screen size.
Font Icons: Our icons were custom created using a vectorized font. We can dynamically change the size and color for perfect scalability for enhanced responsive design.
See Utah.Gov 2013 Innovations for more.
“With more Internet users per capita, Utah is proud of our eGovernment success that results in a more efficient and technologically advanced way to interact with government,” said Utah Governor Gary Herbert. Utah citizens have access to hundreds of online services that processed over 31 million transactions last year, estimating millions of dollars in savings to the state.
HAWAII - www.hawaii.gov
The all-new Hawaii.gov is designed for mobile with a “touch-first” responsive web design, automatically adjusting content according to the device which is accessing it. Built for touch, speech, and with accessibility in mind for all users, the new design showcases the very best in modern Web standards. Highlighting Hawaii’s diversity, native culture, and the uniqueness of each island, Hawaii.gov also provides a Web experience that truly reflects the Aloha State.
Major enhancements and features:
Developers take note — the stack powering the new site is truly cutting edge. From State Scoop:
A developers page highlights the technology the eHawaii.gov team used to create the site. The gateway portal was built using open source technologies, including the wiki-like markup language Markdown, Git for version control, Jenkins and Jekyll to deliver “stynamic” (static + dynamic) content.
The New Hawaii.gov Website from ehawaii.gov on Vimeo.
As we stated during our annual stockholder meeting – a study by Cisco Corporation noted that more mobile devices are purchased every day than babies are being born worldwide. That is an amazing statistic and reinforces NIC’s charge to make our eGovernment services accessible anytime, anywhere.
That work continues in our South Carolina portal, as residents now can access local government services 24/7 on their mobile devices, thanks to a new mobile payment enhancement to SC.gov’s enterprise payment processing system.
Several counties and local communities already have adopted the system, clearing the way for residents to pay for utilities, business licenses, court fees and other government services via their mobile devices. At least a dozen other South Carolina communities will implement the system this summer.
Because SC.gov’s system uses responsive design – which automatically resizes Web pages to fit the screen of the device being used, whether it’s a desktop PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone – it can be made available on any device that has Internet access. SC.gov works with each government partner to design entry pages that are unique to their needs.
The new mobile payment processing system will allow South Carolina state and local governments to better serve constituents by providing services on an “any screen, anytime” basis – what NIC’s best-in-class eGovernment services are all about!
ARKANSAS - www.arkansas.gov
Arkansas’s official state website (www.arkansas.gov) recently launched a new design aimed at improving access for mobile devices, enhanced search, and a new feature, “Arkansas Gov2Go,” that provides information via SMS text messaging. The highlights of the new design are Gov2Go, enhanced search, and the use of responsive design to provide access to content at any screen size.
Gov2Go is like a personal assistant connected to Arkansas.gov’s library of services, agency and personnel directory and the state’s GIS mapping services. Here are some examples of questions you can ask Gov2Go via text message or email:
“Gov2Go is the nation’s first personal government assistant,” said Phil Billingsley, General Manager of the Information Network of Arkansas. “Arkansas has a very high number of families who don’t have a landline phone or computer at home. We wanted to provide a way for these families to access government information even if they don’t have Internet access.”
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20130513005139/en/Arkansas/Arkansas.gov/NIC
Around 70% of visitors to Arkansas.gov use the search first to find what they are looking for and the new Arkansas.gov smart search adds several features to make searches more accurate and useful to visitors. Search uses natural language processing, and results are location-specific if your browser shares its location or you set your location via zip or city.
Visit the the all-new Arkansas.gov, or one of over 1,100 online services today!
NIC’s CEO featured in the New York Times
What do the CEOs of California Pizza Kitchen, LinkedIn, and Panera Bread have in common with NIC’s CEO Harry Herington? All of them have been interviewed by reporter Adam Bryant for the ‘Corner Office’ feature in the New York Times.
The ‘Corner Office’ appears every Sunday in the Business section of the newspaper and includes highlights from conversations the reporter has had with business leaders about leadership and management. Harry recently spoke with Adam about the ‘Ask the CEO’ initiative that Harry created to foster employee engagement at NIC. Harry’s “Corner Office” profile was featured in the May 19, 2013 issue of the newspaper.
For the past few years, Harry has ridden his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to NIC’s portal locations. He even had the bike shipped to Hawaii and rode into Honolulu. At each stop, Harry facilitates ‘Ask the CEO’ over dinner, allowing employees to ask him both professional and personal questions. He believes face-to-face meetings are the best way to build trust with employees. He likes to keep the setting casual and fun, and tries to be as candid as possible with the employees.
In the article, Harry says his No. 1 job “…is to set the culture of the company.” Read how important a culture of trust is to Harry and how he works to establish trust with his employees at NIC.
Source: The New York Times
One thing smartphone owners can all agree on: cell phones are convenient. Studies are also showing that for internet use, cell phones also better fit people’s usage habits and fill access gaps. Spotting and watching these trends is a necessary piece of the future of eGovernment.
According to Pew Internet, in 2012, 55% of mobile-phone owners went online. 17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device.
Smashing Magazine (Mobile is Not an Add-On) recently listed several pretty incredible stats regarding mobile internet use.
In “Data Monday: Impact of Responsive Designs,” Luke Wroblewski cites increased revenue, conversions and website visits following responsive redesigns.
Pew Internet’s study of US adults, “Cell Internet Use 2012,” is full of recent figures. 55% of mobile-phone owners use their phones to go online, and 31% of those users go online mostly on their phone.
QuirksMode’s “Browser Stats for Q4 2012 and All of 2012” shows that mobile browsing — counting phones, not tablets — “now accounts for 11% of all browsing.”
Campaign Monitor states that more emails are read on mobile devices than on desktop.
Technology Review’s “Mobile Computing Is Just Getting Started” shows that sales of mobile handsets overtook sales of PCs in 2012.
As the article says, “The evidence is clear: The shift to mobile is well underway. As important as the Web is to any business or institution, mobile is the Web and is just as important.”
We’ll be highlighting ten new redesigns from NIC portals over the next couple of weeks, and you’ll notice several themes: the importance of mobile, responsive web design, and delivering information and customer service via SMS/text messaging. Mobile government is on the rise!
See how government agencies in Mississippi are using mobile technology to keep you informed. Are you mobile?
ms.gov has been optimized for you! Any device. Anywhere.
Check out www.ms.gov today!
Tour the new ms.gov with us!
Disaster assistance is available to people impacted by the Oklahoma tornadoes. Apply online at disasterassistance.gov or call 800-621-3362.
