New Zealand Launches a User-Centered Government Website

Sick of going to one government bureaucracy for a service only to get passed along to another and yet another?

Wonder why government doesn’t communicate across agencies to provide a centralized service to you? Jared Gulian and his colleagues at the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs are planning a solution for New Zealand.

They’ve also come up with an online resource for state sector employees to learn and discuss best practice for the delivery of government services and information in New Zealand. That resource is called the Web Toolkit.

Listen to Jared tell Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program about the design of the new website and how it’ll help government agencies to improve government services for citizens of New Zealand:

The Web Toolkit is an online resource for New Zealand for government agencies to
communicate with each other and learn best practice. It is replacing the former Web Standards site to help agencies respond to shifting government priorities and the need to provide better services at a lower cost. According to Gulian, the ultimate goal is for New Zealanders to “complete transactions with government easily in a digital environment.”

“The real benefit for government can come from engaging with citizens in new ways and actually hearing what they need so that we can iterate our service and info delivery in ways that meet their needs.”

The meat of the Web Toolkit website is the blog, which provides a central location for government web and communication specialists to share information across agencies. The thinking behind the blog is that if public administrators can collaborate across agency lines, then the services citizens receive will be more seamless.

The other main component of the site is the guides. The idea is to offer resources about strategy and operations, content and design, law and policy, and technology that are all in a centralized place for government employees to access.

The website will hopefully provide a useful forum for government and citizens. To Jared, the current government trend is “let’s evolve and adapt,” and the redesigned website is one response to that call.