2023 Winners

International and Region 4

Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles

Colorado DMV Website: The Most Visited Colorado State Government Website

With 5.9 million unique visitors and a total of 9.7 million sessions in 2022, the Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles is the most visited state agency website. While this comes as no surprise since most Coloradans will need the DMV’s services to get a state identification (ID) or driver license, the Colorado DMV takes pride in making sure the website is up-to-date and accessible to all Coloradans is top priority. Whether it’s someone experiencing homelessness who needs a state ID, an undocumented or temporarily legal resident who needs a driver license and to register their vehicle, the Colorado DMV is committed to finding ways to better serve all Coloradans and the website is no exception. All of the web pages have a plug-in which allows users to translate web pages into their preferred language – with more than 150 languages available. The website is also American Disability Act compliant – which means the site is accessible for anyone using a screen reader or other accessibility tools. Our website also makes it easy for customers to complete various DMV services online. With our online portal, myDMV, customers can renew their driver license, vehicle registration, change their address, and complete other DMV services without having to wait in line at a DMV office. With online services, information on how to apply for a driver permit, what an out-of-state transplant needs to do to meet Colorado’s requirements for vehicle registration, and more, the Colorado DMV website gives customers everything they need at their fingertips.

Region 1

Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration

myMVA eServices Portal

In late 2021, MDOT MVA completed the Customer Connect project, a system-wide modernization project that replaced all of its existing, antiquated mainframe legacy systems with a secure, 360-degree view of the customer. As a part of the project, the existing eServices page would be migrated to a new, user-friendly platform that was directly tied into the Customer Connect system and could provide updates to accounts and transactions immediately. While MVA had a functional eService site for many years, this new customer portal gave the agency the opportunity to rebrand the look and feel of the new eServices portal as well as make the user experience and navigation secure, simple, and easy to use. Work on the new site began almost a year prior to its launch. The first conversations involved the safety and security of the system. The focus included how to build a product that customers could trust and use as a tool to assist them 24/7 with their MVA business. Password lengths and requirements were debated, additional verifications discussed to optimize security. Next, working with developers, the team began reviewing the flow and verbiage of each transaction. Not only was it important that the transaction function correctly, it was equally important that the written directions to complete the transaction made sense in the simplest, most direct language possible. Next, the MVA marketing team discussed the look and feel of the site. It was important to keep the look and feel as consistent as possible to give customers comfort that they were still on a page that was part of MVA. The design layout was also constrained by the limitations of the system. To ensure the design was on the right path, a usability study was conducted six months prior to launch. After taking the feedback from usability participants, MVA went another step and got customers involved. The team went directly to the customers for feedback. Using screenshots, they did A/B testing with customers waiting in the branch for services. The customer feedback provided certainty that icons were the most useful for ease of navigation. After deliberation, myMVA was chosen as a catchy name.

Region 2

Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles

FLHSMV Career Website Overhaul

Working with Personnel, the Office of Communications WebTeam overhauled the Career section to provide more information about all the various positions and benefits the department offers. The team used custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code in tandem with WordPress features and plugins to effectively present and organize the assets and information on the page. On the main page, the hoverable images are each two images and use JavaScript to detect the user’s pointer location and CSS to animate the effect. On the Career Opportunities and Benefits pages, the icons on the page use a similar code as the main page to detect the user’s mouse location and click to create a menu effect. A plugin was used to create the tabbed content that appears after clicking the icons on the Career Opportunities page. They developed an analytic dashboard that allows the real-time monitoring of user activities to be utilized by personnel in tandem with marketing and job board posting efforts to monitor effectiveness.

Region 3

Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles

Virtual Breakroom

The Virtual Breakroom is an innovative and informative internal website that was introduced during the 2020 pandemic. The site was created for employees to stay connected while enjoying engaging activities and content including work anniversaries, puzzles and trivia, branch and central office news, and cooking and travel tips. It has served a great purpose, sharing both pertinent, and fun information with branch and central office staff. Further, it provided staff a great way to stay in touch with each other during uncertain times. While the marketing and communications department, and agency as a whole, have been thrilled with the VB and what it has done for internal agency communications, they saw an opportunity, with folks returning to office, to introduce new content. To this end, there have been two exciting, collaborative efforts in the past year. One with the Indiana State Personnel Department’s (SPD) Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunity division and the other with BMV Operations. The partnership with SPD has provided informative homepage content reinforcing the state’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and opportunity. Topics have included Pride Month (with an option for branches to create a flag representing their team), Women’s History Month, religious holidays, National Suicide Awareness Week (sharing state counseling services), and motor vehicle safety and awareness information (including Distracted Driving Awareness Month). Employees were also provided an opportunity to film their own insurance company parody commercial for National Insurance Awareness Day, which proved to be a very entertaining endeavor. With support from operations, they have introduced “Compliment Corner”. BMV associates regularly receive kudos from the public through different channels, including social media and email, and this page provides a central location for these compliments to be shared with all team members.