Tennessee’s website sees dramatic increase in mobile usage

TN.gov, Tennessee’s official website, saw a dramatic increase this year in visitors viewing the site with mobile devices and handheld tablets, officials said.

After a redesign in 2013, mobile traffic increased by 51 percent and tablet users increased by 68 percent in 2014. The redesign optimized TN.gov for a range of screen sizes – from monitors to tablets to phones – to provide easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning and scrolling.

In addition to the redesign, Tennessee state agencies released eight applications for mobile or Web that were specifically designed for small screens. The Web applications were created using a responsive design, which adapts to the viewers’ various device widths and screen resolutions, providing better usability and viewing capabilities.

The TN.gov website and eight applications were developed by NIC Inc., Tennessee’s e-government partner since 2000.

State governments in general have worked to make their sites more responsive to mobile devices over the past year. That’s been part of a large customer service push as state governments aim to put more services online as a way to increase access and save taxpayer money.

It’s been a busy year for state and NIC e-government developers.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam recently announced a public review process to obtain feedback from Tennesseans regarding the state’s education standards using a new application, which was designed, developed and deployed within about 30 days.

The Tennessee standards in English and mathematics set grade-specific goals that define what all students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of a given grade or course. There are more than 1,100 content standards in English and over 900 content standards in math.

Released on Nov. 6, the app allows visitors to read each standard and vote on whether it should be kept as is, reviewed or removed. If it needs to be reviewed or removed, the application presents a text box in which the respondent can provide comments.

When the review period is complete, two committees and six advisory teams of Tennessee educators will take the data for analysis. The advisory teams will review Tennessee’s current standards with the feedback to make recommendations to the committees, which might then propose changes.