{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
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    "title" : "Turning Government Data into Better Public Service |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Turning Government Data into Better Public Service",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/2015/03/19/turning-government-data-into-better-public-service/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Turning Government Data into Better Public Service","summary" : "Every day, millions of people use their laptops, phones, and tablets to check the status of their tax refund, get the latest forecast from the National Weather Service, book a campsite at one of our national parks, and much more. There were more than 1.3 billion visits to websites across the federal government in just","date" : "2015-03-19T10:32:42-04:00","date_modified" : "2024-04-02T09:45:13-04:00","authors" : {"leah-bannon" : "Leah Bannon","tlowden" : "Tim Lowden","ryan-panchadsaram" : "Ryan Panchadsaram","charles-worthington" : "Charles Worthington"},"topics" : {
        
            "analytics" : "Analytics"
            },"branch" : "cm-topics-button-component",
      "filename" :"2015-03-19-turning-government-data-into-better-public-service.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2015/03/2015-03-19-turning-government-data-into-better-public-service.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/cm-topics-button-component/content/news/2015/03/2015-03-19-turning-government-data-into-better-public-service.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/cm-topics-button-component/content/news/2015/03/2015-03-19-turning-government-data-into-better-public-service.md","slug" : "turning-government-data-into-better-public-service","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/2015/03/19/turning-government-data-into-better-public-service/","content" :"\u003cp\u003eEvery day, millions of people use their laptops, phones, and tablets to check the status of their tax refund, get the latest forecast from the National Weather Service, book a campsite at one of our national parks, and much more. There were more than 1.3 billion visits to websites across the federal government in just the past 90 days.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToday, during Sunshine Week when we celebrate openness and transparency in government, we are pleased to release the \u003ca href=\"https://analytics.usa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDigital Analytics Dashboard\u003c/a\u003e, a new window into the way people access the government online. For the first time, you can see how many people are using a federal government website, which pages are most popular, and which devices, browsers, and operating systems people are using. We’ll use the data from the \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/guides/dap/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDigital Analytics Program\u003c/a\u003e to focus our \u003ca href=\"http://www.whitehouse.gov/usds\" target=\"_blank\"\u003edigital service teams\u003c/a\u003e on the services that matter most to the American people, and analyze how much progress we are making. The Dashboard will help government agencies understand how people find, access, and use government services online to better serve the public—all while protecting privacy. The program does not track individuals. It anonymizes the IP addresses of all visitors and then uses the resulting information in the aggregate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/03/600-x-279-DAP-dashboard-Analytics-USA-gov.jpg\"\n    alt=\"A screen capture of a portion of the Analytics dot U S A dot gov dashboard shows a tally of 140,868 people viewing government websites at that moment.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere’s what we’ve already learned from the data:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOur services must work well on all devices.\u003c/strong\u003e Over the past 90 days, 33% all traffic to our sites came from people using phones and tablets. Over the same period last year, the number was 24%. Most of this growth came from an increase in mobile traffic. Every year, building digital services that work well on small screens becomes more important.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSeasonal services and unexpected events can cause surges in traffic.\u003c/strong\u003e As you might expect, tax season is a busy time for the IRS. This is reflected in visits to pages on IRS.gov, which have more than tripled in the past 90 days compared with the previous quarter. Other jumps in traffic are less easy to predict. For example, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/att-refunds\" target=\"_blank\"\u003erecently-announced settlement between AT\u0026amp;T and the Federal Trade Commission\u003c/a\u003e generated a large increase in visits to the FTC’s website. Shortly after the settlement was announced, FTC.gov had four times more visitors than the same period in the previous year. These fluctuations underscore the \u003ca href=\"https://playbook.cio.gov/#play9\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eimportance of flexibility in the way we deploy our services\u003c/a\u003e so that we can scale our Web hosting to support surges in traffic as well as save money when our sites are less busy.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMost people access our sites using newer Web browsers.\u003c/strong\u003e How do we improve digital services for everyone when not all Web browsers work the same way? The data tells us that the percentage of people accessing our sites using outdated browsers is declining steadily. As users adopt newer Web browsers, we can build services that use modern features and spend less time and money building services that work on outdated browsers. This change will also allow us to take advantage of features found in modern browsers that make it easier to build services that work well for Americans with disabilities, who access digital services using specialized devices such as screen readers.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis Analytics Dashboard is just a first step. Not every government website is represented in this data. Currently, the Digital Analytics Program collects Web traffic from almost 300 executive branch government domains, including every cabinet department, out of about 1,350 domains total. Over the coming months, we will encourage more sites to join the Digital Analytics Program, and we’ll include more information and insights about traffic to government sites with the same \u003ca href=\"https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/03/19/how-we-built-analytics-usa-gov/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eopen source development process we used to create the Dashboard\u003c/a\u003e. If you have ideas for the project, or want to help improve it, let us know by \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/gsa/analytics.usa.gov\" target=\"_blank\"\u003econtributing to the project on GitHub\u003c/a\u003e or emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:digitalgov@gsa.gov\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDigitalGov\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLearn more about the Digital Analytics Program at:\u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/guides/dap/\"\u003eDigital Analytics Program\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLearn more about the U.S. Digital Service at: \u003ca href=\"http://www.whitehouse.gov/usds\"\u003ehttp://www.whitehouse.gov/usds\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLearn more about 18F at: \u003ca href=\"https://18f.gsa.gov/\"\u003ehttps://18f.gsa.gov/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLearn more about the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy at: \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp\"\u003ehttps://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003eLeah Bannon is part of 18F within GSA; Tim Lowden is a Program Analyst on the Digital Analytics Program within GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies; Ryan Panchadsaram is Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer; Charles Worthington is part of OMB’s U.S. Digital Service HQ.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis article was originally posted on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/03/19/turning-government-data-better-public-service\"\u003eWhite House blog\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}