Expanding the Digital Services Awards 2023: celebrating excellence beyond government agencies

The Digital Services Awards, an annual event dedicated to recognising exceptional digital service standards, will be expanding beyond government agencies to feature categories solely for the industry sector, encouraging broader participation and acknowledging the valuable contributions of citizens and private organisations.

This year will be the Awards’ third edition and see the introduction of a new award category, “Outstanding Citizen Contributor”, which will recognise citizens who have actively participated in and contributed to improving government digital services. Additionally, the categories of “Best Usability” and “Most Popular Informational Website” will be open to industry nominations for the first time, with a public and private sector winner for each of the categories.

While a significant portion of the awards focuses on technical excellence, powered by the Whole-of-government Application Analytics (WOGAA), other categories acknowledge user experience, visual appeal, and qualitative aspects. This balanced approach celebrates holistic achievements.

Further details of each award category are available at the end of this article.

Industry award nominations now open, government award nominations in June

Nominations for the Best Usability and Most Popular Informational Website (Industry) awards are now open. If you have a website that meets the eligibility criteria below, seize this opportunity to showcase your achievements and be recognised for your efforts.

Eligibility criteria for Best Usability and Most Popular Informational Website awards include:

• Singapore Domain: Only websites with .sg domains (including redirected sites) are eligible.
• Public Access: The website must be fully accessible to the public.
• Informational: The primary function of the website should be to provide information, with no more than 20% of transactional pages. E-commerce, social media, service/event/job/gaming portals do not qualify.
• Non-government: The website should not have a gov.sg domain.
• Minimum Web Traffic: The website must have a minimum of 3,000 visits/sessions per month.
• Safety: Obscene, illegal, or socially harmful websites will not be entertained.

To submit your nominations, visit the Digital Services Awards website and follow the instructions provided. The deadline for nominations is July 31, 2023, 6 pm.

Important dates to take note of!

As for government agencies, the government nomination form will be sent via GovTech DigitalGov by the first half of June.

To ensure fairness and appropriate representation, government agencies will be grouped based on their digital maturity and resources owned, resulting in three size classifications: Large, Medium, and Small, determined by the number of Informational Websies sites owned.

Evaluation timeline and criteria

The evaluation process consists of three tiers, with evaluation conducted by both experts and citizen judges:

Tier 1: Establishing the Top 10 - Pre-screening Evaluation (Aug-Sep 2023)

After the nomination period ends, the nominated Informational Websites will undergo pre-screening based on GovTech’s Digital Services Standards. The top 10 nominees fulfilling the baseline standards of intuitivity, usability, accessibility, and inclusivity will proceed to the next round and automatically become nominees for the Most Popular Informational Website award.

The top 10 nominees will be revealed in September 2023 on the Digital Services Awards website.

Tier 2: Establishing the Top 3 - Judges Evaluation (Sep-Oct 2023)

A panel of judges will evaluate the top 10 nominees based on Nielsen Norman’s Group 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and their own expert domain knowledge. The top three nominees with the best scores will advance to the final round.

Tier 3: Establishing the Final Winner - Citizen Evaluation (Oct-Nov 2023)

One hundred citizen evaluators, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), will assess the top three nominees using the System Usability Scale (SUS). The nominee with the highest combined score from the judges and citizen evaluation will win.

Take part in raising digital standards in Singapore

With the expanded award categories and the opportunity for industry nominations, the Digital Services Awards 2023 hopes to spur individuals and businesses to enhance the usability and inclusiveness of local digital services.

For more information and to submit your nominations, visit the Digital Services Awards website. So mark your calendars and spread the word.. Together, we can shape the future of digital services in Singapore and create a more inclusive and user-centric digital experience for all.

Details of award categories

Industry Awards:

1. [New!] Best Usability: This award recognises the non-government website with the best usability, based on ease of use, usefulness, and satisfaction. Judges’ evaluations and assessments by citizens, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), play a crucial role in determining the winner.

2. [New!] Most Popular Website: This award recognises the most popular non-government website, as voted by live attendees during the award ceremony.

Government-affiliated websites are not eligible for the Industry awards.

Government Awards:

1. [New!] Outstanding Citizen Contributor: This category celebrates citizens who have actively participated and contributed to the improvement of government digital services. Nominations open in June.
   • Three Agency Nominated Winners: Government agencies can nominate citizens based on their contribution’s scale, impact, and level of participation in various initiatives. The nominees will undergo screening and assessment by a panel of judges to determine the top three winners.
   • Three Tech Kaki Winners: This award recognises the top three Tech Kaki community members with the highest participation rate in Tech Kaki engagements.
   • Three CrowdTaskSG Winners: This award acknowledges the three most active users of CrowdTaskSG, a platform for crowdsourcing tasks and contributions.
2. [Renamed!] Best Usability: This award recognises the Informational Service Website that has the best usability, considering ease of use, usefulness, and satisfaction. Nominations open in June.
3. Most Popular Informational Website: This award acknowledges the most popular Informational Website, based on the highest number of live attendee votes during the award ceremony.
4. Best Functionality: This category honours agencies that have achieved the best combination of WOGAA Inspect scores for Page load time, SEO, and Accessibility across all their Informational Websites.
5. Best Improvement: This award acknowledges the agency that has shown the most significant improvements during the qualifying period.
6. Best Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) for Transactional Services: This category recognises agencies that exceed user expectations with the best customer satisfaction scores based on WOGAA Sentiments.
7. Best Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): This award acknowledges agencies with Informational Websites that are highly searchable, with the highest SEO scores from WOGAA Inspect.
8. Best Accessibility: This category recognises agencies with the highest WOGAA Inspect Accessibility scores across all their Informational Websites.