Government Websites Best Practices: Performance

Numerous studies in the private sector have demonstrated that website speed performance is a critical factor to improved conversions due to a more convenient user experience. Although government websites usually don’t feature e-commerce functionalities, website visitors can still benefit from fast content delivery and digital transaction speed, especially in self-service pages.

By approaching the digital transformation project with the business mindset, the award-winning GOV.UK website saved £61.5 million in 2015. They focused on streamlining digital transactions in order to help users accomplish as many digital transactions as possible online, instead of visiting offices and filling out paper forms. In the Government Transformation Strategy (PDF), the government of the United Kingdom stated:

Services must work for the whole of society – not just the 77% of people who have basic digital skills, but for the 12.6 million adults who don’t. This is particularly important as financial exclusion and digital exclusion often go hand in hand.

Improving accessibility and page speed performance in turn improves audience reach and digital service adoption.

A few examples of digital services that benefit from page speed improvement include:

1. Online account registration and switching to paperless correspondence.
2. Vehicle registration and driver’s license renewal.
3. Benefit or retirement account self-management.
4. Consumer complaint filing and resolution.
5. Business registration, and business license applications and renewals.

So, let’s talk about how to improve performance of your carefully crafted digital services.

In January 2021, we evaluated over 300 California, U.S., and international government websites for page speed performance using Google’s PageSpeed Insights, which measures website performance on a scale of 0–100. As you probably assumed, 100 is the best score, and one that is beyond reach even for the most popular websites out there. Go ahead and test a few websites that you visited this week to get a better idea about how they perform, and to see how various scores correlate with actual usage.

In our test, we discovered that about 3% of tested government websites score 90–100 points for mobile performance, and 18% of government websites score 90–100 points for desktop performance (median mobile: 50, average mobile: 38, median desktop: 64, average desktop: 68). 

Given the median and average values above, and the fact that many popular non-government websites’ scores linger in the 30s for mobile and 50s for desktop performance, it’s worth looking at our top performers’ examples to see what they did right. 

Continue reading below to learn why performance matters, and how to immediately improve your website’s performance with a few practical tips. In this article, we will cover:

1. Why does website performance matter?
2. What is an excellent level of governmental website performance?
3. Five simple improvements for better website performance.

Please note that when we evaluate page speed performance, we do not cover the quality of accessibility, interface design, usability, content design, or information architecture. We plan to cover these other topics in separate articles. Subscribe to our newsletter and connect with us on LinkedIn to receive future updates.