For a complete list of this year's winners and honorees, plus project winners, click here.
Taking a community-centered approach to determine where improvements to digital government platforms can be made helps cities, counties and states to more strategically deliver the tools, services and information residents need.
This year, the winning jurisdictions in the Center for Digital Government's* Government Experience Awards focused on making government more accessible to everyone who might need to interact with it through technology — and that work is not limited to websites and apps. Notably, all the winning jurisdictions are looking at artificial intelligence with a cautious but inquisitive eye to ensure they are adopting it for the right reasons: to help people. Officials within each of the winning jurisdictions made one thing clear — they are not adopting technology for its own sake, but rather as a tool to improve the quality of government services.
CALIFORNIA — FIRST PLACE IN THE STATE CATEGORY
California’s digital experience strategy starts with the ca.gov website redesign, but it doesn’t end there; it’s about meeting all California residents where they are to provide the information they need when they need it. The state’s quick creation of a webpage in response to the Los Angeles wildfires this year illustrated this well.
The state represents the fourth largest economy in the world, with more than 150 state departments, boards and commissions to navigate, and more than 200 languages and dialects are spoken there, making it one of the most linguistically diverse U.S. states. As such, the catalyst for the ca.gov redesign was an effort to ensure that when a resident is trying to find information or support, it should be easy for them to connect with government, CIO Liana Bailey-Crimmins explained: “It should be service-driven.”
Shortly after the redesign launched, the state had to act quickly in the wake of the L.A. wildfires, so CTO Jonathan Porat led a team in the creation of ca.gov/lafires to help people get the information they needed — quickly — from temporary shelter to information on rebuilding a home to vital records access and beyond. Officials leveraged data analytics to build the platform to be responsive to users’ needs.
And when California officials talk about serving all residents with technology, that means everyone, including those who have disabilities, who do not speak English or are undocumented immigrants, Bailey-Crimmins explained. As such, accessibility is looked at holistically, rather than solely through a legal perspective. That means that state platforms should serve as a method to reduce barriers to service, she said, and should be accessible to everyone.
“We believe there’s no equity without digital equity,” Bailey-Crimmins said.
The platform also aims to serve as the state’s digital identity platform as it evolves, allowing individuals to seamlessly access services and benefits across state government more easily.
Effective digitization goes beyond turning a paper form into a PDF, Porat said; it’s allowing technology to transform processes. The data working behind the scenes through the state application is the infrastructure that allows for data alignment across departments, which delivers a more consistent experience, even as the platform changes. The data and technology powering this work on the back end allows for more scalability, Porat explained, and the integration of new features like digital ID technology or an AI assistant.
“We know with technology, it's continually evolving, so whatever we wanted to put forward needed to be modular,” Bailey-Crimmins said of ca.gov, underlining that this approach was intended to better position the state to integrate emerging technologies like AI. Technology is “never done,” she said, stressing the need to not implement “technology for technology’s sake,” but rather let research inform what residents need.
Today, officials are using AI through proofs of concept and pilots to improve the state workforce’s capacity — with the driving goal being to positively impact residents.
WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — FIRST PLACE IN THE COUNTY CATEGORY
Wake County, N.C.’s approach to digital government experience is a comprehensive one that is empowered by county leadership, informed by data and accessible to every resident.
The county leverages data from its website to measure and improve customer satisfaction. Private-sector organizations often look at websites with the goal of converting people to a sale, and the government equivalent is to help people find the information or services they need, according to the county’s CIO Jonathan Feldman.
Importantly, government must work for everyone, regardless of any disabilities they may have, Feldman said, so accessibility is a key priority for officials: “It's really just a way of making sure that everyone who participates and contributes to Wake County government is able to access our resources.”
One way to make government accessible is implementing a mobile-first strategy to better serve people because they are predominantly using the Internet from phones. This is especially true for those in lower income brackets, Feldman said, so the purpose goes beyond practicality to being a “fairness and justice” issue.
Another way Wake County makes government accessible is through story maps, which use text and images to enhance storytelling and provide an experience, Feldman explained; for example, a resident can visit a local park and learn about the history of the plants they may see. A forthcoming story map project will explore the history of racial restrictions in title deeds, illustrating the lasting impacts on county neighborhoods.
The county’s digital experience work goes beyond the government’s website to encompass initiatives like making street views available on county park trails, launching a learning platform at county libraries to support economic mobility and even creating an app for residents to track landfill odors.
“I’m proud to work in a county where not just IT, but everyone, understands that to give people a good citizen experience, we’ve got to be more than a website,” said Feldman. So officials are looking at new technologies, too.
Local government’s role, he said, is to get the whole picture of emerging technology tools like AI before implementation.
Leaders are taking a cautious approach to AI implementation, learning lessons from the county's first chatbot iteration and postponing its public debut until the potential for hallucinations was addressed. A public-facing chatbot will soon be ready for release, Feldman said.
Wake County uses AI internally, but with a human in the loop for oversight. To responsibly launch these tools, the county’s strategy involves a joint effort convening experts across different county teams — Feldman emphasized that partnership powers all the IT-driven customer experience improvements in the county — to ensure “the information is right every single time.”
County employees can use the county’s Wake County AI Stance, a living document offering guidance for balanced and responsible use, and Feldman underscored the importance of a balanced approach to ensure safe and effective AI adoption.
DENVER, COLO. — FIRST PLACE IN THE CITY CATEGORY
In the city and county of Denver, a human-centered approach to IT shapes the digital experience. Engagement with residents is critical, and cyclical, to ensure needs are met through evolving technology work.
The Digital Experience division within Denver’s Technology Services department helps shape the resident experience by aligning engagement and feedback obtained through multiple channels to create a more streamlined and personalized experience for residents — akin to the Amazon experience, CIO Suma Nallapati explained.
Denver is creating a Customer Data Platform to get a more comprehensive read on resident needs. The platform will enable a metric-driven view of what government customers want, allowing officials to support target outcomes with data-informed resource allocation, Nallapati explained. As Denver leverages data to deliver better services, she said that data privacy is a “sacred responsibility” for government.
Denver’s user experience work prioritizes both security and accessibility by design, looking at Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and security protocols from the start of any new technology implementations, Nallapati said. And as the government takes on new digital products, collaboration among Denver technology leaders helps ensure they work for residents’ needs.
This mindset is critical with emerging technology applications like the Interactive Voice Response platform within the 311 contact center, directing nonemergency callers through an automated system when appropriate; between Jan. 1 and Sept. 8, 151,838 calls were transferred through a “very seamless” handoff to a live agent, out of 510,086 calls received.
Looking ahead, Denver is not shying away from AI, but has a sharp focus on improved service. “So, we are striving for that — proactive, prescriptive and personalized experiences with our residents — and AI is one of the tools in the toolbox,” Nallapati said.
One such example is Sunny, the city’s AI-powered chatbot, which has helped Denver augment and supplement limited resources in what Nallapati said she believes to be a common challenge for local government: budget constraints. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 8, more than 102,000 residents engaged with Sunny in 72 languages, resulting in a 90 percent customer satisfaction score.
Through the Denver AI Summit, officials have convened with other technology leaders to explore how to support the city’s AI leadership. Kids today will grow up with generative AI in schools and in workforces, Nallapati said, so she underlined the importance of city leaders working with experts from the education and private sectors to better understand and use tools like AI to build the human workforce's capacity to solve more problems for the people they serve.
“AI is shaping every aspect of our lives,” Nallapati said, emphasizing that AI tools, along with broader digitization efforts, are intended to deliver at least one key outcome: to improve the satisfaction residents feel about their experiences interacting with government services.
*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, Government Technology’s parent company.
