NASCIO Recognizes Massachusetts' work on the Digital Roadmap

BOSTON - The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced October 1, 2024 that Massachusetts has received the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) award for Government-to-Citizen Digital Services. The award recognizes the state’s efforts to continually improve the experience for residents accessing services and information via the web through the Commonwealth Digital Roadmap.  

The award comes just days after the administration’s Digital Roadmap won First Place among all states for Digital Experience by the Center for Digital Government and GovX. Together, these two awards underscore the administration’s mission to advance access to state government information and services into the digital space.

“We are able to undertake this ambitious, multi-stage project in large part because of the tremendous partnerships we have across state government,” said Technology Services and Security Secretary Jason Snyder. “We are actively working hand-in-hand across agencies to tackle the challenges we are facing through hands-on delivery support, funding, and IT modernization. The Healey-Driscoll Administration is proud to deliver a nation-leading user experience for our constituents.”

?The Commonwealth Digital Roadmap is an ambitious multi-year initiative aimed at improving digital services for Massachusetts residents through more accessible, simple, consistent, and secure digital experiences that place people at the center of the state’s digital strategy. 

Launched in July 2022 by the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), the roadmap has its origins in the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a massive shift in how people needed to interact with a receive state services, from mostly online to entirely online. Recognizing the critical role that technology plays in the delivery of government services and in the lives of our residents, this enterprise initiative was born out of a desire to adapt quickly to residents’ changing needs and deliver exceptional digitally enabled experiences that make it easier to navigate the digital landscape of state government. To do this EOTSS and Mass Digital took an integrated and collaborative approach to defining the strategic direction of the roadmap (pillars) by incorporating diverse perspectives from across the state in the form of direct resident feedback and cross-agency collaboration.  

The Roadmap pillars set the strategic direction and framework for the types of experience improvements Massachusetts residents can expect over the next several years, and where notable progress has already been made:

Defining Identity to drive more efficient digital interactions by helping people create and manage a single secure and recognizable user profile they can use to gain access to state services. 

MyMassGov (my.mass.gov), provides a secure single sign-on (SSO) solution currently serving 1.5 million residents, allowing them to use a single account and password to sign in to all participating Massachusetts state services and applications. Building on the existing constituent SSO, MyMassGov went live on July 9, 2024, allowing users to easily and securely access multiple Massachusetts state programs and applications through the single-login, and self-manage their credentials including name, password, email and multifactor authentication settings. Soon, residents will also be able to store additional profile information which they can choose to share with agencies, allowing them to securely access and more easily apply for top state services while easing the burden of data entry and documentation. Moving forward, residents can expect to see a steady expansion of constituent-facing applications which will integrate with and be accessible through MyMassGov, as well as new features like universal profile management and identify verification.

Tracking Progress is about improving end-to-end service delivery and better keeping people in the loop about the progress of their requests and transactions.

Experience improvements in this space have included piloting real-time tracking systems for select state services, aimed at assisting both constituents and service providers with up-to-date information accessible via mobile device, and user-friendly design. Additionally, the team is prioritizing application of Human Centered Design, best practices, and competencies including User Experience research and usability testing that will enable the state to deliver digital experiences in line with what residents are expecting in the commercial digital environment.

Streamlining Communications looks to find opportunities to help constituents seamlessly engage with state government across channels to communicate, navigate and get help with state services.

AskMA, the state’s multilingual chatbot, currently serves more than 700,000 active monthly users, answering an average of 3.75M visitor messages and 94.7% of responses. The team continues to iterate on and expand use cases for AskMA to expand to live chat and large language model (LLM)-powered chat which is a type of artificial intelligence. Recent examples include successful partnerships between Mass Digital and the RMV’s Enforcement Services Unit to pilot one of the Commonwealth’s first constituent-facing live chat experiences; and with the Department of Early Education and Care to pilot the Commonwealth’s first generative AI tool in the form of an LLM-powered iteration of AskMA. 

Tailoring Moments identifies opportunities to provide personalized and accessible experiences that can adapt to people's diverse and changing needs –via overall experience improvements and helping to build capacity across state agencies.

Delivering value in this space has involved collaboration across agencies to help them improve constituent experiences, through hands-on delivery support, adoption of new technologies and capacity building. Looking to the future, efforts in this pillar will focus on how to drive more connected digital experiences that make it easy for constituents to get what they need. This will include partnering with agencies to design services around common life experiences, and drive cross-agency, cross-service improvements based on a holistic view of constituent end-to-end journeys. 

“By directly engaging constituents we have developed an understanding of the challenges they face that has transformed the way we are approaching service design and accessibility,” said Technology Services and Security Assistant Secretary and Chief Engagement Officer Matthew Moran. “It is exciting to see the early results of our investment in improving digital experiences across the Commonwealth.”

“Excellent government experiences aren't about technology, they’re about people.” said Massachusetts Chief Digital Officer Devyn Paros. “We’re making an impact by working closely with our partners across state government and bringing research, design and tech to bear to solve real problems for real people.”

About the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO): 

NASCIO is a consortium of state chief information officers, dedicated to advancing government excellence through trusted collaboration, partnerships and technology leadership. NASCIO is dedicated to advancing a vision of government in which the public is fully served through business innovation and the optimal use of technology. 

About EOTSS:

As the state’s lead technology secretariat, EOTSS is charged with the responsibility of coordinating the Administration’s information technology activities and ensuring that all executive department agencies adhere to its published standards, policies, and procedures. This enterprise approach provides a single, comprehensive framework to ensure that the state is in alignment to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the Commonwealth’s data and information systems.