Digital Transformation in Government Insight #57:
The GovCX Awards

The awards

The GovCX Awards 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 release and video announcement.

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:

• Gerd Schenkel, founder and managing director of BGA Consulting

• David Heacock, CEO of Cybertrack

• Marla Mitelman, experience design director at BCG Digital Ventures

• Grantly Mailes, 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. 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 website. 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 Budget 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 Agency for its participatory budgeting service website, 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!