How Hawai’i Improved Public Feedback Through Smart Digital Design and Behavioral Nudges

Public engagement is essential to good planning, but anyone who’s managed an engagement  process knows that not all feedback is created equal. Long-form letters and essay-style submissions, while sometimes valuable, are often difficult to analyze, hard to connect to specific policies, and resource-intensive to process. That’s why a quiet shift in how feedback is collected, using smart digital design and behavioral nudges, is proving to be a significant improvement.

A standout example comes from the County of Hawaiʻi, which recently completed a major update to its General Plan. In past efforts, as much as 50% of public input arrived as multi-page letters, which were rich in content, but scattered and unwieldy. During the most recent update, the County received only five long-form submissions. The difference? A strategic shift in how feedback was collected using Konveio, a digital platform purpose-built for structured public input and AI-supported analysis.

Instead of offering an open-ended upload portal, Konveio guided participants through structured, topic-specific comment fields, prompting them to engage directly with the content of the plan; section by section, policy by policy. Open comment boxes were capped with a character limit to promote focused responses. Longer submissions were still technically accepted, but only through a separate channel that required contacting staff directly first. This small barrier functioned as a behavioral nudge, making the preferred method easier and positioning long-form uploads as the exception rather than the norm.

The result? Not only was feedback far more manageable, it was also significantly easier to analyze using Konveio’s built-in AI tools. Because comments were already grouped by policy area, the system could automatically cluster similar themes, surface cross-cutting insights, and generate summaries that helped planners understand what really mattered to residents. No manual sorting, no sifting through lengthy documents. Just focused, actionable input, ready to inform decision-making.

This kind of structured approach doesn’t just make life easier for planning teams, it improves the overall quality of public engagement. By guiding contributors to comment within context, people are more likely to provide feedback that’s relevant, specific, and aligned with the actual decisions at hand. Then by reducing the friction of data analysis on the backend, public agencies can more quickly and transparently respond to what they’ve heard.

Hawaiʻi’s experience is a powerful example of how small process design choices, like setting a character limit and reframing the submission process, can shift participant behavior in big ways. With the help of tools like Konveio, it’s possible to preserve inclusivity while promoting efficiency, making engagement processes better for both the public and the people doing the work behind the scenes.

As more communities look to modernize their engagement practices, this model of structured, guided, and AI-assisted feedback collection offers a promising way forward. It’s not just about gathering input, it’s about making it count.

View the final recommended draft at https://cohplanning.konveio.com/draft-2-general-plan-2045