Texas.gov, the official website of the State of Texas, is pleased to announce the portal’s fourth-place ranking in the 2016 Center for Digital Government “Best of the Web” (BOW) competition. After introducing the first-ever single-page state portal in 2015, which elegantly streamlined access to government services and information for constituents, Texas.gov continues to use insights from web analytics and social media interactions to hone in on the user journey. Keeping the highly lauded one-page design intact, this year’s additions to the Texas.gov portal focus on cultivating an even more personal, transparent, and social experience for users.

New features on this year’s portal include:

  • The ability for users to select a visual design theme from options including “Texas Americana” – a nostalgic, distinctive take on some unique visages of Texas; “Texas City Lights” – a modern, high-contrast view of Texas cityscapes at night; and “Texas State Symbols” – a showcase of the state flower, animal, flag, bird, and tree;
  • A dedicated Open Data section, located in the website footer and accessible via texas.gov/opendata, which provides related information and resources and a link to data.texas.gov, the State’s Open Data Portal. Additional open data listings are also available in the “Find It” tab on the right-hand side of the page, and;
  • A powerful content aggregation tool that curates and displays social media streams for Texas.gov and Texas government agencies in order to drive user engagement, two-way communication, and improved customer service.

The Texas.gov program also continues to be instrumental in driving digital government efficiencies in Texas. As a self-funded public-private partnership, the program provides tremendous value to the State and its constituents. In 2015, the program securely processed more than 45 million transactions worth $1.3 billion, and contributed $29.2 million in new revenue to the Texas General Fund.

Consumer Alert: In order to safely process government business online, beware of unofficial, look-alike websites operated by private organizations that may charge unnecessary fees for State services or information. Instead, make sure to use official website, http://www.texas.gov, or an official state agency website to complete your online transaction. To access an official state website, enter the URL in the address bar at the top of your Internet browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) instead of entering the address in a search engine bar (e.g. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). Also, look for the “.gov” or “.state.tx.us” extension, which will be present in all official Texas state government website URLs.

About Texas.gov

Texas.gov is the official website of the State of Texas (www.texas.gov), and is a collaborative public-private partnership managed by the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR). Texas.gov helps state and local government entities web-enable their services, and operates without tax funds through a partnership between the State of Texas and Texas NICUSA, LLC (Texas NIC). Texas NIC builds, operates, maintains, and markets Texas.gov, and is part of digital government firm NIC’s family of companies. Since its launch in 2000, Texas.gov has securely processed more than 288 million financial transactions and has collected more than $33 billion on behalf of participating entities.

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.