Pageviews have quadrupled since the relaunch of NY.gov last November.

What the New NY.gov Taught Us About Service

(What Worked, What Didn’t & What’s Next)

It’s been nearly a year since we relaunched NY.gov, New York State’s official website, for the first time in 15 years to make it more citizen-centric, accessible and easy to use.

Since launch, we’ve doubled our unique users and quadrupled pageviews and mobile traffic. We’ve also fixed things that weren’t working as we’d hoped. And now, close to the anniversary of our relaunch, we’re charting our strategy to expand this brave new user experience across all New York State agencies. Here’s a quick look at what we learned and where we’re going in digital service design.

1. The future of digital government is mobile. If you tried to view the old NY.gov on a smartphone, you’d get a tiny version of the same outdated desktop website. And no amount of pinching and zooming made it usable. The new NY.gov is fully responsive, adjusting instantly to any screen, including phones. Users have responded — and mobile traffic has quadrupled since relaunch. It’s not surprising: there are more mobile phones than people in the U.S. Now we are finally serving New Yorkers like a 21st government.
2. Service reigns supreme. Governor’s Cuomo’s top feedback when we previewed the new website to him? Make the new Services section even more front-and-center. Of course, the Governor was 100% right to focus on customer service. The Services hub has been the most visited page every month since launch, exceeding big announcements and new programs. The lesson: always remember why your users need you, and focus on adding value to their lives.
3. Connect emotionally. While digital government design is primarily about utility, you always have the opportunity to connect emotionally with your users. Make them happy by allowing them renew a driver’s license online, instead of in person. Make them feel at home by showing a seasonal image of where they live. And make them realize that there’s a human being behind every service, by connecting visitors with our 300+ social media channels for a better customer experience.
4. Data + location = instant personalization. The biggest strategic challenge of NY.gov? Making the website of an incredibly diverse state feel personal to each and every user. New York State has big cities and small towns, mountains and coastline, and beautifully varied culture and daily life. To solve this personalization challenge, we combined the assets of our open data platform with the user’s region to build Local, a location-based presentation of services . Local launched on the homepage, but was so popular that we gave it its own page.
5. Good design means taking away. When we first launched NY.gov, we had some bells and whistles that seemed great in theory, but weren’t being used in practice. It can be painful to throw away features, but it’s the only way to learn and improve. For us, we simplified our previously interactive navigation bar, and removed a homepage feature that no one clicked on. As a result, ny.gov become more usable, engaging and intuitive overnight.
6. Never stop improving. Our digital team is obsessed with tracking how the public interacts with ny.gov. They produce monthly metric reports to track quantitative indicators. And at the bottom of every Service page, we ask whether or not we helped. Melanie, Courtney and Jessica use that qualitative feedback to constantly tweak our Service pages. We never stop improving, because you can’t stand still on a moving train — and we know that great service means constantly pushing ourselves to do better.
7. Spread the love. In two weeks, we’ll kick off our first-ever Agency Redesign Summit, where we’ll talk about the next phase of NY.gov: expanding our technology and design framework to the State’s 60+ agencies. We’ll be rolling out access to reusable web components, our universal navigation, the Drupal Content Management System, cloud hosting, the NY.gov content strategy, style guides, and much more. It’s a new age for State government, and the team can’t wait to embark on this next milestone for digital service design in New York.