Shaking up the idea of a state portal

Garp · 29-04-2013, 20:26

On Friday we got the go-ahead from the Governors office to launch the new state portal : http://portal.ehawaii.gov

We've tried to go away from the usual styles and approaches taken by various state portals, and hopefully shake things up a bit.

Everything is arranged into four simple categories, and we've tried to heavily focus on making navigation as intuitive as possible which has meant throwing out some preconceptions about how things should be. People don't really care all that much which department it is they need to contact about, say, getting camping permits. Nor should knowing be a requisite for buying one. They just want to get a camping permit! Unfortunately most portals are stuck dealing with competing political plays by various departments. We've been really lucky that both the Office of Information Management Technology (OIMT), the State CIO, and the Governors office have all had our backs on this huge overhaul. So much so that unlike any other government project we've ever been involved in, we got this from concept to production in just a few days under 2 months. Given we had to curate and overhaul all the content as well as design and test that's a phenomenal achievement. If we'd had to deal with the usual way a portal is designed and launched we'd probably be talking 9 months+.

On the tech front, if you'll excuse the buzz-word bingo: it's using an HTML5 based, mobile-first, responsive design (so it automatically provides the best layout for your devices resolution, and doesn't waste time downloading large content on small screens), that is touch-enabled and data driven.

All content is generated hourly from markdown format (same thing reddit uses for comments) into HTML by ruby/jekyll, meaning our web-servers can just get on with presenting the site rather than trying to figure out what to present. It's quicker for users, and less resource intensive for my servers. It's also helped us enormously with rapidly prototyping the site and getting it into fit form for bringing live.

One of the awesome things behind it is that it's also got all of our design and content management team to use Git and they just love it. Version control all the things \o/

Joe 90 · 29-04-2013, 20:56

Looks a whole lot better than https://www.gov.uk/

To continue on the tech front... I've only ever made a little game with Ruby but I've heard good things about it.

For the past couple of years I've been involved in a project thats recently hit the news if you're an employer in the UK originally using Python/XML & SVN and in the final version, Django (offline), PyQt & Git. I've only been using them for this project but now love Django, Python & Git! Now I've got a VPS setup with Nginx, Django & run things through BitBucket!

Garp · 29-04-2013, 21:20

One huge positive I'll say about gov.uk, it's exceptionally easy to find things on it. That's something that couldn't be said for most government websites

Ruby I could honestly take or leave. I just don't see enough advantage in it. I much prefer doing stuff in python!
There are some really good tools that have been built using Ruby, but they could just have easily have been built in other languages without any difficulty. The Ruby MRI has got some very peculiar quirks to it too, like arguably one of the most naive method caches of any modern language. JRuby fixed that a while back (upstream patches were rejected) and runs very nicely on the JVM.

My own VPS runs Nginx, and my blog uses Octopress, which is a nice blog tool on top of Jekyll. Same idea as with our portal, I'm hosting static content.

One of the roles the Sysadmin team had when we launched into the project was evaluating tools and ways to build the site. From the get-go I was arguing for a static content site, and the top notch web guy from the Rhode Island portal (former Inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellow, Danny Chapman) we had helping us was also a strongly in favour of it having used such methods himself in the past. We looked long and hard at alternatives such as Hyde (Python based Jekyll clone) but the alternatives were mostly either abandoned or really not fit for purpose.

Desmo · 30-04-2013, 10:24

I like it....it looks so clean and simple. I really don't like our local gov site, it's so messy and overloaded with information, you just can't find anything.

Garp · 02-05-2013, 08:17

Every year the Center for Digital Government organises an awards ceremony to encourage agencies to innovate and improve their technology. It's one where you have to submit your site/services for consideration, along with a relatively small payment (few hundred bucks), but it makes the agencies very happy and is good PR.

NIC portals have routinely won awards for various services we've provided, and with some 30 portals there is more than a little bit of friendly competition going on between them to win an award. The deadline for applications for the award is May 1st, one reason why we were so desperate to get the site live.

Two weeks ago, Texas launched their new portal: http://www.texas.gov/en/Pages/default.aspx
We launched last Friday.
Arkansas launched Tuesday: http://arkansas.gov/
and we heard earlier today South Carolina launched their new site: http://www.sc.gov/Pages/default.aspx

I may be biased but I stlil think ours is best

29-04-2013, 20:26	#1
Garp Preparing more tumbleweed Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hawaii Posts: 6,038	Shaking up the idea of a state portal On Friday we got the go-ahead from the Governors office to launch the new state portal : http://portal.ehawaii.gov We've tried to go away from the usual styles and approaches taken by various state portals, and hopefully shake things up a bit. Everything is arranged into four simple categories, and we've tried to heavily focus on making navigation as intuitive as possible which has meant throwing out some preconceptions about how things should be. People don't really care all that much which department it is they need to contact about, say, getting camping permits. Nor should knowing be a requisite for buying one. They just want to get a camping permit! Unfortunately most portals are stuck dealing with competing political plays by various departments. We've been really lucky that both the Office of Information Management Technology (OIMT), the State CIO, and the Governors office have all had our backs on this huge overhaul. So much so that unlike any other government project we've ever been involved in, we got this from concept to production in just a few days under 2 months. Given we had to curate and overhaul all the content as well as design and test that's a phenomenal achievement. If we'd had to deal with the usual way a portal is designed and launched we'd probably be talking 9 months+. On the tech front, if you'll excuse the buzz-word bingo: it's using an HTML5 based, mobile-first, responsive design (so it automatically provides the best layout for your devices resolution, and doesn't waste time downloading large content on small screens), that is touch-enabled and data driven. All content is generated hourly from markdown format (same thing reddit uses for comments) into HTML by ruby/jekyll, meaning our web-servers can just get on with presenting the site rather than trying to figure out what to present. It's quicker for users, and less resource intensive for my servers. It's also helped us enormously with rapidly prototyping the site and getting it into fit form for bringing live. One of the awesome things behind it is that it's also got all of our design and content management team to use Git and they just love it. Version control all the things \o/ __________________ Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"?

29-04-2013, 20:56	#2
Joe 90 Absinthe Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Chester Posts: 2,345	Looks a whole lot better than https://www.gov.uk/ To continue on the tech front... I've only ever made a little game with Ruby but I've heard good things about it. For the past couple of years I've been involved in a project thats recently hit the news if you're an employer in the UK originally using Python/XML & SVN and in the final version, Django (offline), PyQt & Git. I've only been using them for this project but now love Django, Python & Git! Now I've got a VPS setup with Nginx, Django & run things through BitBucket! __________________ 360 Blog \| Join GiffGaff \| Twitter

29-04-2013, 21:20	#3
Garp Preparing more tumbleweed Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hawaii Posts: 6,038	One huge positive I'll say about gov.uk, it's exceptionally easy to find things on it. That's something that couldn't be said for most government websites Ruby I could honestly take or leave. I just don't see enough advantage in it. I much prefer doing stuff in python! There are some really good tools that have been built using Ruby, but they could just have easily have been built in other languages without any difficulty. The Ruby MRI has got some very peculiar quirks to it too, like arguably one of the most naive method caches of any modern language. JRuby fixed that a while back (upstream patches were rejected) and runs very nicely on the JVM. My own VPS runs Nginx, and my blog uses Octopress, which is a nice blog tool on top of Jekyll. Same idea as with our portal, I'm hosting static content. One of the roles the Sysadmin team had when we launched into the project was evaluating tools and ways to build the site. From the get-go I was arguing for a static content site, and the top notch web guy from the Rhode Island portal (former Inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellow, Danny Chapman) we had helping us was also a strongly in favour of it having used such methods himself in the past. We looked long and hard at alternatives such as Hyde (Python based Jekyll clone) but the alternatives were mostly either abandoned or really not fit for purpose. __________________ Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"?

30-04-2013, 10:24	#4
Desmo The Last Airbender Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Pigmopad Posts: 11,915	I like it....it looks so clean and simple. I really don't like our local gov site, it's so messy and overloaded with information, you just can't find anything. __________________

02-05-2013, 08:17	#5
Garp Preparing more tumbleweed Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hawaii Posts: 6,038	Every year the Center for Digital Government organises an awards ceremony to encourage agencies to innovate and improve their technology. It's one where you have to submit your site/services for consideration, along with a relatively small payment (few hundred bucks), but it makes the agencies very happy and is good PR. NIC portals have routinely won awards for various services we've provided, and with some 30 portals there is more than a little bit of friendly competition going on between them to win an award. The deadline for applications for the award is May 1st, one reason why we were so desperate to get the site live. Two weeks ago, Texas launched their new portal: http://www.texas.gov/en/Pages/default.aspx We launched last Friday. Arkansas launched Tuesday: http://arkansas.gov/ and we heard earlier today South Carolina launched their new site: http://www.sc.gov/Pages/default.aspx I may be biased but I stlil think ours is best __________________ Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"?