Gabriyel Wong, Director DSPMC, with HTX’s Best Discoverability award (left). With him are four members from HTX’s website team: Sivakumar Vadival, IT Consultant, DSPMC (second from left); Alvin Lim, Senior Web Editor and Content Strategist, Strategic Communications (third from left); Law Yong Wei, Manager, Digital & Social Media, Strategic Communications, (fourth from left); and Melvin Cheang, Deputy Director, DSPMC (fifth from left). (Photo: HTX)
HTX helped the digital services of several Home Team Departments win awards at the 2025 Digital Services Awards. The digital services of the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), and HTX all won the Best Discoverability award. SPF digital services also picked up an award for Best Functionality.
One Home Team! DSPMC Director Gabriyel Wong (eighth from left) with members from the digital services of the Home Team Departments. (Photo: HTX)
Gabriyel Wong, the Director of HTX’s Digital Services Programme Management Centre (DSPMC), whose officers had worked with their counterparts in the Home Team Departments to improve their websites, said, “Citizens feel frustrated when they cannot find information and services relevant to their needs. Our motivation is to relentlessly solve this problem to improve lives.”
Christopher Lim, Deputy Director (Content & Media) of HTX’s Strategic Communications division, added, “This Best Discoverability win is testament to the many months - including nights and weekends - of painstaking work the HTX Strategic Communications team spent optimising our revamped website and content, working closely with DSPMC, in order to ensure that the world can better discover how HTX exponentially impacts the Home Team. We’re now better positioned to tell HTX’s stories more compellingly and to reach a wider audience, so that everyone can read about what a great place HTX is to work at, and how much amazing S&T talent we have here.”
DSPMC Director Gabriyel Wong also participated in a panel discussion on best practices for digital services. (Photo: HTX)
The Best Discoverability award, which was previously known as the Best Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) award, is awarded to agencies with the best mobile and desktop SEO scores and which have also implemented effective government search functions in their digital services.
Sivakumar Vadival, an IT consultant with DSPMC who is also a member of the HTX website team, shared, “Winning the Best Discoverability Award validates our analytical approach to creating seamless digital experiences – ensuring visitors can effortlessly find accurate, relevant information on the HTX Corporate Website.”
The Best Functionality award, which was won by SPF digital services, is awarded to agencies with the best overall scores for Discoverability and Page Load Time.
Chee Hui with her Superstar Champion of WISE award. (Photo: HTX/Hon Chee Hui)
DSPMC IT Consultant Chee Hui Hon, who is also a member of the HTX website team, picked up an award for Superstar Champion of WISE. The Champions of WISE are agency representatives who champion the use of the Whole-of-Government Informational Service Excellence (WISE) digital services in their respective agencies.
How does it feel to be recognised as a Superstar Champion of WISE? Chee Hui shared, “It's truly humbling to receive this recognition. Being a Superstar Champion of WISE is about more than individual achievement – it's about transforming how we deliver digital services across government. I hope this encourages more public officers to explore how WISE can enhance their work and better serve our citizens.”
Alister James Stewart, recipient of the Outstanding Citizen Contributor Award, with Gabriyel Wong, Director DSPMC. (Photo: HTX)
Alister James Stewart, a user who provided useful feedback for the improvement of the SPF website, received the Outstanding Citizen Contributor award, which is awarded to those who have contributed extensively to the improvement of Government Digital Services. Alister won the award for showing great enthusiasm in providing valuable insights to website design over several rounds of user research interviews, raising the website's System Usability Score by 20% from 63 to 82 after the iterations.
Aside from these wins, the SPF and ICA websites were also finalists for the Most User-Centric Website award, which is awarded to the agency that collaborates the most with their website users through effective feedback collection, user testing, and analysis to enhance user experience.
The ICA website was also a finalist for the Best Usability award, which is awarded to the website which has the best ease of use, usefulness and user satisfaction; and the Most Popular Informational Website award, which was determined by the highest number of live attendee votes during the DSA award ceremony.
