Small Wins, Big Impact: Leveraging and Elevating User Engagement
Summary
Through Open Cities, Granicus was able to expand on our ability to provide resident-centered digital experiences in local governments around the world. Our platform is the public sector's leading digital customer journey platform that has helped thousands of local governments transform their websites, digital forms, and service delivery experiences. Join Irina Tikhonova and Kari Dietrich in this session focused on the importance of starting small when elevating user experiences. We discuss how to focus on user journeys, involve the right stakeholders, and push for data-driven and human-centered policy changes.
Key Insights
-
•
Starting with small targeted digital pilots can generate large savings and efficiency gains in local government services.
-
•
Grand Rapids’ 311 service redesign reduced walk-ins by 79% and saved $200,000 in staff costs within six weeks.
-
•
Granicus platform offers a modular, ‘Lego-block’ approach allowing government clients to build tailored user experiences.
-
•
Combining technology with consulting services around data, personas, and user journeys improves digital transformation outcomes.
-
•
Real user testing with diverse populations reveals deeper insights than relying solely on personas or anecdotal data.
-
•
In Wyandotte County, policies created services that were not equitable, especially for those without legal representation.
-
•
Iterative, user-centered design processes with hybrid content management help improve government website content consistency.
-
•
Resistance to change inside government is common and requires persistent champions like Becky Joglover to overcome.
-
•
Digital services designed for the most marginalized users tend to improve usability for the entire resident population.
-
•
Government websites should act as online government itself, not just provide information about government.
Notable Quotes
"Big projects tend to get out of hand and scare stakeholders, so starting small is key to scaling impact."
"Granicus is like Lego blocks — you can create any type of engagement and experience you want."
"Majority of users relied heavily on Google to find government services rather than navigating the site itself."
"84% of website contributors didn’t know their own top pages or important analytics."
"Digital transformation can be slowed down by leadership resistance and a desire for gradual change."
"If you fix the problems for marginalized communities, you really fix them for everyone."
"People just wanted to get in, get what they needed, and get out without figuring out government operations."
"Websites and digital spaces should be government, not just provide information about government."
"You never get all your usability testers to respond, you always need to recruit more than you think."
"Employees creating content improved rapidly when centralized guidelines and editing were applied."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We had to convince our director and executives by showing how the repository added real value for the product team."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"How we orient ourselves to the future impacts how we experience the present."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Disruptive innovation is about changing customer behavior, not shipping features."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"Leadership needs to be just as behind accessibility as the designers and professionals doing the work."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"It’s the individuals who choose whether and how they take advantage of the opportunities you create."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Our skills matrix became the center of gravity for our practice—it started writing job descriptions and guiding recruitment."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"A workshop helps people map their skills, identify gaps, and make specific goals for career jumps."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"Context is really super important not only for design and research but for how you design organizations and ways of working."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"A product designer said I can now see glaring inconsistencies before I got my head around design system patterns."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025