Online services are arguably the best way to reduce wait times at DMV offices and make them a much more pleasant place to visit for American motorists. That’s why DMV websites can be a crucial factor in enhancing customer satisfaction, helping drivers save valuable time and money, by allowing them to make appointments over the Internet, download forms, make payments, apply for a new driver’s license or vehicle registration or renew the current ones, from the comfort of their homes. But, the availability of online services and the functionality of DMV websites varies between states, with some of them lagging far behind the others in terms of providing quality content, number of services, design, and usability.
DMV.com ranked all state DMV websites, taking into account the aforementioned categories, and in this blog post, we take a look at the worst 10 rankings on the 2015 State DMV Website Rankings. The list starts with Montana at number 42, with 53 points, followed by Mississippi (53), New Hampshire (52), Oklahoma (50), Wyoming (48), Minnesota (47), Oregon (46), Hawaii (44), Kansas (33), and Kentucky, at the bottom of the list with a total of 31 points.
There are many issues that these websites are faced with, and they received low grades in all four categories: design, usability, services and website content. Most of them have an unresponsive design, preventing drivers from accessing them from a smartphone or a tablet, along with menus that have no logical hierarchy and are not clearly visible, which makes users waste a lot of time while trying to find the topic they are looking for.
Furthermore, they fail to provide the physical location information, that is pretty important to those who need to go to a DMV office and conduct a transaction in person. Also, they only offer a few of the most important services online, and they don’t allow drivers to make appointments online.
As far as website content is concerned, the websites don’t provide enough information that can explain users what the necessary steps are to conduct desired transactions, and most of them don’t provide content for the online services available on the websites. What’s more, a lot of the websites ranked in the worst ten don’t have links to in-site or outbound pages that can describe and explain a specific topic on the website related to DMV services.
All this means that the websites on this list need to be upgraded and modernized. They need more concise content, with useful links and important information, they must increase the number of services offered online, their menus need to be organized better, and they must be mobile responsive. If the state DMVs managing these websites are able to take care of these issues, they will definitely provide a better user experience and will make for a more efficient DMV.