Hawaii’s User-Centered Redesign of Annual Filing Website Wins Government Standard of Excellence Award

The Business Registration Division, Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, of the state of Hawaii is honored to receive the Government Standard of Excellence Award from the Web Marketing Association for its Annual Business Filing service.

Business owners in the state of Hawaii are required to file an annual report to stay in compliance with state laws. Originally launched in 2001, the annual filing online service was completely redesigned in December 2016 to incorporate new functionality and address requests from the site’s users. Major upgrades included adding the ability to submit multiple annual reports with a single payment as well as incorporating user-centered design to improve usability.

The redesigned annual filing application has many features that address client needs:

• First, the user is presented with an appealing, up-to-date interface that is consistent and cohesive, whether the user is on a laptop or a mobile device
• Customers can now look up their business by business name, instead of only by their file number
• Filers can easily edit their company information and the data is validated
• The new shopping cart allows users to efficiently pay for multiple annual filings at once—no need to file annual reports separately and pay for it one at a time
• Customers can clearly see the option to pay for expedited service
• Users can log in with their account, which pre-fills contact information during the payment process
• When a submission is complete, customers receive an email receipt and a separate email PDF copy of what was submitted online

The changes have been met with resounding success. Upon the launch of the updated service, call volume from users decreased 30 percent in Q1 2017.

About the Business Registration Division

The Business Registration Division (BREG) of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA) is responsible for processing and maintaining public access, registrations of corporations, general and limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies, trade names, trademarks, service marks and publicity name rights.

About eHawaii.gov

This service was launched as part of the eHawaii State Portal Program. Pursuant to chapter 27G, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the Portal Program is overseen by the Access Hawaii Committee, which collaborates with provider Hawaii Information Consortium (HIC) along with state and county agencies to continually identify new online services to be added to the portal.

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV) is celebrating 25 years as the nation’s premier provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government interactions more accessible for everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies has developed a library of more than 13,000 digital government services for more than 5,500 federal, state, and local government agencies. Among these solutions is the ground-breaking digital government personal assistant, Gov2Go, delivering citizens personalized reminders and a single access point for government interactions. More information is available at www.egov.com.