Hawaii.gov is the official website for the State of Hawaii. Designed for mobile and built for touch, speech, and accessibility for all users, the site allows the public and businesses to re-imagine how they interact with Hawaii government.
Initial release & revisions
In 2000, Tyler Hawaii worked with their oversight committee and State personnel to create and launch Hawaii’s first official state website. The original website helped remove the stigma of Hawaii government being behind-the-times in terms of information technology and set the pathway for digital government services. Over the next 23 years, continual refinement and a few major overhauls ensured the website stayed aligned with web technologies and trends.
2020 redesign
In July 2020, Tyler Hawaii collaborated with the Office of Technology & Information Services on the newest website redesign. The primary focus was to give the site an updated look and feel as well as improve the user experience through updates to the content and navigation. We did this by analyzing customer feedback, traffic data and past audience behavior.
The site continues to use responsive features that adapt to the visitor’s device, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or personal computer, and it meets accessibility guidelines to ensure information is available to all.
2013 redesign
In the spring of 2013, Tyler Hawaii collaborated with the Office of Information Management & Technology (now ETS) on the website redesign. The touch-first design, Hawaiian themes, dynamic data and enhanced search represented a huge evolutionary step forward in government websites. The result of this redesign work propelled Hawaii.gov to award-winning levels. Hawaii jumped from middle of the pack in prior years to a top-10 finalist in the Center for Digital Government’s Best of the Web awards for 2013 (earning first place in 2014).
Gamifying government
The my.hawaii.gov service was retired in February 2024 and is no longer available.
In 2014, Hawaii.gov took a first-of-its kind approach to the gamification of government, to create a new one-stop shop allowing Hawaii residents to completely customize how they interact online with the state on any device, anywhere, anytime – securely and reliably. The result, my.hawaii.gov, integrates with 7 of the 17 departments and includes a rich, personalized history of all business conducted online with the state.
mySavings, a service within my.hawaii.gov, demonstrates the benefits to citizens of conducting their business with the government online by creating awareness around the amount of paper, miles, and time saved. It even gives helpful, Hawaii-centric tips for what users can do with their newfound time!
National stage spotlights
What began as uplifting recognition by the Center for Digital Government, rapidly grew and spread as people across the nation took notice. We, as teammates at Tyler and Hawaii residents, are honored and proud to be part of the story.
- 3 Lessons Hawaii Learned from Gamifying Government
- Hawaii.gov Gamified to Drive Up Adoption
- Boosting Engagement by Gamifying Government
Countless features
Hawaii.gov connects citizens to government via 340+ social media pages, a comprehensive government directory of all departments and agencies, and a news feed that aggregates current events from most agencies.
A Flickr photo pool allows citizens to share photos with the chance to have them featured on the site. And for fun, we also created the error page of Armageddon – portal.ehawaii.gov/404, a secret konami code, and a background image that will update automatically every two months to keep the site looking fresh.
All work on the Hawaii.gov website was completed at no cost to the State of Hawaii or its taxpayers.
Award winning
Hawaii.gov has been the recipient of 20 awards since the redesign launch including the highly coveted Center for Digital Government, Best of the Web award in 2014 which named Hawaii.gov as the best website in the nation.
“Through executive and legislative support, Hawaii made big changes to its web portal quickly, transforming into a cloud-based, open-source, mobile-first, gamified resource. Judges were impressed by the portal’s “elegant and beautiful design,” ease of navigation and a suite of functionality that set it apart from the crowd. Gamified elements like leaderboards and badges, along with transaction history through My Hawaii gives users a personalized experience, and are driving up online service adoption.”
