Digital.gov

Timeless top 10 best practices for great government websites

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:00:00 -0500

While the field of federal web management continues to evolve, the core best practices have remained essentially unchanged for two decades.

Celebrating Digital.gov Communities: 2021 in Review

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:50:00 -0500

Happenings, milestones, and data points from the past year.

Measure Performance to Make Continuous Improvements

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 12:00:00 -0500

This week, we’re exploring what it means to measure performance, and we’re taking a look at how listening to customers is the best way to continuously improve websites and digital services.

OMB M-20-19

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 14:00:00 -0500

Harnessing Technology to Support Mission Continuity

Checklist of requirements for federal websites and digital services

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 01:20:11 -0400

Links to relevant laws, policies, and regulations for federal agencies.

USWDS Maturity Model

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

How to adopt the design system incrementally and design and build better digital experiences.

Requirements for delivering a digital-first public experience

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 15:00:00 -0500

Learn how to implement 21st Century IDEA to design and deliver better websites and digital services.

Language Connections: Tips to Create, Maintain, and Present Non-English Digital Content

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 14:00:00 -0500

Tips to help you improve access to your non-English digital content.

Digital Meets Culture: Getting Your Culture in Line With Your Digital Strategy

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Join Digital.gov’s Web Managers Community as they host a discussion with panelists from the Lab at OPM, National Institutes of Health, Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and Presidential Innovation Fellows. The panel will discuss how to align culture and digital strategy to build better digital services.

USWDS & Accessibility: Creating More Inclusive Federal Websites

Thu, 20 May 2021 14:00:00 -0500

How does USWDS address accessibility? Join us as we share tips and tools for addressing accessibility throughout the lifecycle!

USWDS Monthly Call - April 2021

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Join the U.S. Web Design System team as they answer the crucial question, “Why use the design system?”

How Chatbots Can Improve Customer Experience

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:30:00 -0500

Come see how various agencies have successfully deployed chatbots/AI to interact with the public and foster collaboration between teams!

Who's on Your Digital Dream Team?

Wed, 27 May 2020 23:00:00 -0500

This week, we’re exploring what it means to establish effective governance, and looking at ways to clarify and fill the roles of all the players on your team.

Promote Continuity to Better Support Customer Journeys

Tue, 12 May 2020 17:00:00 -0500

This week, we’re exploring what it means to promote continuity, and we’re taking a look at ways to use service design to deliver a great experience.

Listen to Customers by Asking the Right Questions

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 14:00:00 -0500

This week, we’re exploring what it means to listen, and we’re taking a look at ways to use feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Spring Cleaning Tips for Web Content

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:00:00 -0500

This week, we’re providing a few tips for tidying up redundant, outdated, and trivial content.

Adopting the USWDS, One Step at a Time

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:00:00 -0500

The U.S. Web Design System is key to new website standards

The website standards

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 20:00:00 -0500

As defined in 21st Century IDEA, the Design System incorporates federal standards to improve federal websites and digital services.

Website standards

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 19:00:00 -0500

GSA officially released the ‘website standards’ referenced in Section 3(e) of 21st Century IDEA. The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) is key to new website standards.

USWDS Maturity Model

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 11:05:00 -0500

The U.S. Web Design System released a maturity model to help you adopt the design system incrementally as you design and build better digital experiences for the American public

Building the Elements That Earn Trust

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 08:34:00 -0500

This week, we’d like to talk about trust, and the elements that go into building trust with people who are using our services.

Let’s Talk 21st Century IDEA

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:00:00 -0500

We are starting a new blog post series on 21st Century IDEA that’ll break down one essential topic and point to guidance to start running with it.

Don't Forget the Long Tail: It Can Deliver Value

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 11:10:37 -0400

Top tasks matter. Visitors come to your website with specific goals in mind. Using a top-task methodology can be particularly useful when redesigning your homepage.

Follow the Clicks: A Look at Click-through Rates on Government Websites

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 10:00:51 -0400

How important is it to show the most relevant result at the top of your search results page? Very. Searchers expect to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily—and without scrolling—when they search on government websites. If a Web page isn’t “above the fold” as one of the first listings on the first results

Help the Public Find Your Information, Wherever and However You’ve Published It

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:00:35 -0400

As traffic to desktop .gov websites declines, how we publish our content increasingly matters. We need to meet people where they are as they seek information on the Internet. To do so, we need to adjust to the new world of mobile applications, social media, and instant answers provided by search engines. Freeing Content from

Search Engine Optimization for Government Websites

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:00:33 -0400

On June 10, 2014, the Metrics Community of Practice of the Federal Web Managers Council and DigitalGov University hosted an event to honor the memory of Joe Pagano, a former co-chair of the Web Metrics Sub-Council. This third lecture honoring Joe focused on search engine optimization (SEO). While commercial search engines do a remarkable job

DigitalGov Search Results Get a Redesign

Fri, 30 May 2014 10:00:39 -0400

Bing, Google, and Yahoo have all rolled out major redesigns to their search results pages in the past year. The last time DigitalGov Search did a major redesign of their results page was in January 2012. It was long overdue for a facelift. So, our team redesigned our search results page. We’ve kept an eye on best

Search Is the New Big Data Recap

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 01:00:01 -0400

Search is easy, right? You type a term in a search box and the exact page you’re looking for appears at the top of the list of results. But search is hard and has many shades of grey. On April 10, 2014, Loren Siebert, our DigitalGov Search senior search architect, presented on: Complexities of recall

Plain Language Page Titles: More Important than Ever

Fri, 28 Mar 2014 01:00:27 -0400

Government Web pages are found mainly through search engines. Google recently redesigned its search results page and there are quite a few small, but impactful, changes in this latest redesign. Specifically, it affects how page titles are displayed. Many experts now recommend even

DigitalGov Search: Our Open Source Strategy

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 10:00:42 -0400

At DigitalGov Search, we keep an eye on on our what our government counterparts are up to, both in the U.S. and other countries. We recently came across Gov.UK’s philosophy on and approach to coding in the open. It caught our attention and we realized we should also articulate our open source strategy. Use and Contribute to Open

DigitalGov Search: Cache Me If You Can

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 08:47:36 -0400

Slowness Hurts Web Pages Have you ever been frustrated when visiting a Web page that doesn’t load quickly? Have you ever left a slow Web page before it finished loading? You’re not alone. Several recent studies have quantified customers’ frustration with slow Web pages. Customers now expect results in the

DigitalGov Search is Now Responsive

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:13:14 -0400

We’ve redesigned our mobile search results page. It now uses a card-based design and is responsive. This design gives searchers a more consistent user experience and access to the results anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Take a sneak peek of the new responsive results page.

Four Steps to Achieve Good SEO

Fri, 31 May 2013 11:21:54 -0400

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the active practice of improving aspects of your website so that commercial search engines (such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo) can find and display your Web pages in the results when they’re relevant to a searcher’s query. Users generally