The mission of Utah.gov was to create a clean, useable commonsense interface that seamlessly directs citizens, businesses and visitors through the labyrinth of state and local government agencies, public education, art and cultural institutions of Utah. Utah.gov, managed by NIC subsidiary Utah Interactive, does, in fact, accomplish this goal by providing a portal with many special and unique features that make it a success.
The front page is built with a clean approach and provides all channels of information right upfront; however, the most innovative features are less obvious and directed at meeting the needs of customer service. Two in particular stand out: 24/7 Live Help that provides citizens access to live support by phone and online chat 24 hours a day, seven days a week; and an Online Chat Network that uses real-time chat to integrate customer-service capabilities across several agencies.
Additional features are: dynamic content that is database-driven and displayed on the portal's front page; Voice Your Opinion, a service that allows the Governor's Office and the Legislature to receive immediate feedback from citizens regarding any number of topics; Rich Site Summary (RSS) content management, which is an XML Web content syndication format, allowing for the easy posting and presentation of news and information from disparate news generation sources; and Web services that allow the use and reuse of data and business processes by distributed automated processes and applications without requiring direct human interaction.
These features were all created based on customer feedback and input. This information was gathered through 10 months of end-user evaluations and testing. This process helped produce both a new design and concept for the portal, focusing on consistency and well-ordered content. Testing also showed that primary navigation and critical content are fundamental portal components.
"We emphasized the value of trying to meet the needs of citizens," said Amy Sawyer, general manager at Utah Interactive. "The most important driver in the changes was trying to provide better service and prepare for dramatic increases in demand for online government. Gov. Mike Leavitt (who is preparing to leave for a position at the Environmental Protection Agency) and Chief Information Officer Val Oveson have been driving the push to provide 24 hour, seven day a week service so people will go through Utah.Gov rather than standing in line at a government office. They want citizens and business to use the portal before they physically resort to going down to a office."
Additionally, many new features are planned for 2004. Among them a wireless project to provide more value for citizens and the potential use of "portletts" for other government and commercial sites.
