What We Learned From the GovHub Listening Tour: Wins, Woes and Wishlists

Every great service starts with listening – not just listening to a user’s wants but also listening to what’s underneath them. Understanding the challenges users face drives a lot of innovations we take for granted today. 

For example, in 2007, if asked how to make a better smartphone, users might have asked for a better physical keyboard. The small screen size was just accepted back then. 

But today, many smartphones later, we enjoy a digital keyboard that disappears when we don’t need it as a standard feature. This provides a larger screen display without lugging around a larger phone. 

In 2025, DSGa embarked on a GovHub Listening Tour. The idea was to not only understand how content managers use GovHub, but most importantly, to uncover areas for improvement. Yes, we would ask them for their wish list, but also listen to needs that could drive solutions they hadn’t thought of yet.

The goal was not to slap a bandaid on user frustrations but to re-visit workflows and GovHub components to help shape the future of the state digital publishing platform.

Why we conducted the listening tour the way we did

It's been four years since our last listening tour. As GovHub continues to evolve, we wanted to hear directly from the people who create and manage content every day. And to get the most honest feedback we could, we worked with independent UX research consultant Cory Lebson of LebsonTech. He conducted interviews with content managers from agencies across state government while we listened unobtrusively. 

Using an independent facilitator encouraged participants to share candid feedback and helped us to zero in on identifying patterns. As mentioned before, we also kept the spotlight both on how users use GovHub and what frustrations they faced.

Through these conversations, we gained valuable insights to improve both the editing experience and public-facing websites.

Wins: What content managers said is working well

The main purpose of GovHub is to make it easy to update content. Editors confirmed the way GovHub was organized made updating simple to achieve. 

We also want content managers to have control over their workflows. They appreciated being able to save work in draft mode, schedule content for publication, and see changes immediately after publishing.

More features that content managers valued included:

• Topic pages make it easy to publish detailed information quickly.
• Accordions reduce information overload when information only relates to a sub-set of users.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provide an effective way to answer customer questions that aren’t covered in larger web sections.
• Micro-content, such as Promos, is straightforward to create and embed.
• DSGa's support desk continues to be a valuable resource for GovHub users.

Woes: Where content managers see opportunities

Along with celebrating what's working, participants identified several areas where improvements could make editing easier.

Some content managers said content approval workflows can be difficult when subject matter experts need to log in only occasionally. Others would like more flexibility when designing page layouts and formatting content.

Content managers also shared challenges with:

• Creating and managing webforms.
• Updating large tables efficiently.
• Scheduling documents.
• Viewing reliable content usage information.
• Understanding when and how to use tags in GovHub.

At the time, several of these improvements have already been addressed, while others are on our roadmap for this year.

Improving the public experience

It’s one thing to make it easy for GovHub users to edit a website, but it’s got to serve website visitors equally well. We listened to content managers tell us about additional layout options, image handling, spacing on pages, and the way complex tables display on mobile devices. 

Our diving deeper into these suggestions reinforce our commitment to making Georgia's digital services accessible, easy to navigate, and responsive across devices.

Wish Lists: Digging beyond surface level solutions

Rather than only asking what new features users wanted, we focused on understanding the challenges they face in their daily work. This approach helps us build upon wishes targeting users’ underlying needs.

Wayfinding: Looking ahead

The feedback from the 2025 Listening Tour is the compass guiding our approach to GovHub's roadmap. Some ideas have already been implemented, others are being researched, and additional improvements are in the works.
 

Related to: 

• Best Practices
• Feedback
• GovHub
• User Testing