The official website for the state of Rhode Island, www.ri.gov, launched its new design this summer. The template offers a high resolution picture of Rhode Island’s beautiful bay, a minimalistic layout, and easy-to-use scrolling navigation bringing high priority content to the front.

The design was created using research methods such as:

  • Conducting citizen and government staff user testing prior to and post redesign
  • Tracking Google analytics by page views, mobile device access, and user geographical location
  • Trending search terms using USA.gov, powered by Bing

The design team at Rhode Island Interactive learned from conducting user testing that a prominent search bar was still the preferred method of finding information quickly on the site. Analytics proved that more than 20 percent of RI.gov users were accessing the portal home page via a mobile or tablet device, making a responsive design essential.

Finally, the most searched for terms were press related, making news a top content priority. The result is a user-driven RI.gov that better supports citizen to government interaction.

www.ri.gov is managed through a collaboration between the Department of Administration’s Office of Digital Excellence and Rhode Island Interactive (RII), the company providing Rhode Island’s digital government services via www.ri.gov. To learn more about RII, a subsidiary of NIC Inc., please visit its website at www.rhodeislandinteractive.com. For more information about the nation’s leading provider of official government websites and online services, visit the NIC Inc. website at www.egov.com.

About RI.gov

RI.gov (http://www.RI.gov) is Rhode Island's homepage and official website, a collaborative effort between the state of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Interactive. The RI.gov website and online services are developed and maintained by Rhode Island Interactive, a Providence-based subsidiary of NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV).

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV) is the nation's leading provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government more accessible to everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies provides digital government solutions for more than 4,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Forbes has named NIC as one of the “100 Best Small Companies in America” six times and the company has been included four times on the Barron’s 400 Index. Additional information is available at http://www.egov.com.