The awards
The GovCX are run by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to recognise great digital experiences being delivered by governments around the world. (By the way, CX = citizen experience.) Nominations closed in February and the winner was announced in late April, via a BCG press and video .
In the video, Miguel Carrasco, BCG Senior Partner and Managing Director, mentioned BCG research that found two-thirds of people experience problems with digital government experience. However, BCG wanted to look at the successes rather than focusing on shortcomings. He said the GovCX Awards were BCG’s chance “to celebrate success and what’s good in digital government service delivery.”
The GovCX Awards are the first of their kind in the world and this year they received entries from 11 countries.
The judging process
The four GovCX judges were:
David , CEO of
Marla , experience design director at BCG Digital Ventures
Grantly , a BCG associate director
The judging criteria focused on:
How intuitive and accessible the site/platform was
How easy it was to find information and search content
How easy it was to troubleshoot
The overall user experience
The winner
The winner is US local government, Denver, for . Pocketgov is a government web portal where users can access information and services that are relevant to them. Users can either login or provide their address or location to access tailored content. The media release cited pocketgov’s “ability to engage users on an emotional level, its ease of navigation, and its intuitive design” as factors for the portal’s win.
Pocketgov gives residents access to things like:
Information relevant to their neighbourhood, including events, crime alerts and local news
DMV renewals (vehicle registration and driver licenses)
Other council/city payments
Street sweeping info and schedule
Waste removal schedule
Tow tracker (for people whose car has been towed by the city)
Election results
Virtual keychain (enabling users to store their library card info, rec centre and MY Denver cards on their device)
In the video announcement, Miguel Carrasco said “This is a terrific service that all of our judges unanimously agreed was the best example of putting users at the centre of government service design.” He also mentioned that users don’t need to know anything about the way the Denver government is structured. Of course, this has been a key driver for governments around the world, where websites have been traditionally structured along government agency structures (something citizens often know nothing about).
The two finalists
Congratulations also go to Victoria’s Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) for its Engage Victoria . The Engage Victoria site allows Victorian citizens to have their say on government policy and service design. Judges commented on the site’s use of patterns, the consistent look and feel, and the ease of use.
Engage Victoria’s homepage lets users browse issues open for comment by subject, or they can scroll to see all open issues and all issues with current updates. Some of the current issues open for community input include:
The review of brown coal power station licenses
New schools planned for specific areas (broken down by area so people can comment on the school that’s relevant to them)
Climate change targets
Management of the Great Ocean Road
Water price review
Residential noise regulations
We’d like to give a special congrats to the DPC! The DPC is one of our many government clients...we’ve just finished delivering the 2018/2019 for them and we’re in the final stages of the DPC’s Single Digital Presence project.
The other finalist was Portugal's Administrative Modernisation for its participatory budgeting service , which allows people in Portugal to provide input on how the budget money is spent. Miguel Carrasco described the website as “an innovative, aesthetically pleasing service that also created a strong emotional appeal.”
Salsa Digital's take
It’s great to see an international award for government digital citizen experience. Citizen experience is a key focus here at Salsa. We’re dedicated to helping our clients create the best citizen experience possible and hopefully some of our recent/current client projects will be up for the award next year!
