News and Updates

Design Sketching: The Easiest Prototype Method Ever

When it comes to Web and software design, the pen(cil) is often mightier than the Design Suite. What I mean is: Tech is cool, but don’t fall under its spell. It’s often when you remove the technological layers between you and your thoughts that the best ideas sprout. You’ve heard of great ideas that started

Jonathan Rubin

Aug 08, 2014

Parents Get a Head Start With New Mobile App

As it’s time to return to school, the Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families is helping parents and teachers prepare anytime, anywhere. Head Start Resources, an app available on iOS and Android, is a gateway to tools and resources for those associated

Katie Steffy

Aug 07, 2014

Celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508

Happy anniversary, baby! Seventies pop songs aside, July 26, 2014, was the 24th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and on August 7 of this year, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended in 1998, will have its 16th anniversary. Sometimes these two laws are mistaken one for the other,

Angela Hooker

Aug 07, 2014

What is a “Customer Centric” Culture – Part 2

Since April of 2011 when President Obama signed Executive Order 13571 mandating agencies improve the quality of service they give to the public, agencies have been working through strategies to best fulfill this task. We at GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT) were no exception. Back in September of 2013, we wrote

Jacqueline Snee

Aug 06, 2014

The API Briefing: An API that Searches other APIs – HealthData.Gov’s Catalog API

As federal agencies release APIs on an almost daily basis, keeping track of the numerous datasets has become a vital service for developers. The Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) manages HealthData.Gov which currently lists 1,680 datasets in 36 categories such as “Public Health,” “Health Care Cost,” and “Health Statistics.” To help developers find

Bill Brantley

Aug 06, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: What’s Your Mobile [App]etite?

In a few short years, the number of mobile apps has exploded, and the time spent on apps continues to increase. However, one thing hasn’t changed: the number of apps individuals use. The average smartphone owner uses 22 to 28 apps in a month, according to new data from Nielsen. Here are a few highlights

Treci Johnson

Aug 05, 2014

Working In Public From Day 1

In the wide world of software, maybe you’ve heard someone say this, or maybe you’ve said it yourself: “I’ll open source it after I clean up the code; it’s a mess right now.” Or: “I think there are some passwords in there; I’ll get around to cleaning it out at some point.” Or simply: “No

Eric Mill

Aug 04, 2014

Video Blog: Alison Lemon, FDA

We wanted to learn a little more about the Office of Women’s Health at FDA, where Alison Lemon, the SocialGov Community Knowledge Manager, works. So we sat down with Alison and learned about the interesting social media approach her office has taken, some of the thinking behind their strategy and what she sees as the

Andrea Sigritz

Aug 01, 2014

Safe Swimming This Summer (Can You Say That Four Times Fast?)

You don’t have to try too hard to get people into the water during summer. But swimming the healthy and safe way? Well, everyone could use help on that. Whether you are a swimmer, lifeguard, pool attendant or sun-loving spectator, the Centers for Disease

Jul 31, 2014

Why @congressedits Matters for Your Agency

If you haven’t heard about @congressedits yet, it’s a Twitter bot that was recently created to tweet out every anonymous edit made to Wikipedia from Congressional IP addresses. So, anyone editing articles on Wikipedia without logging in, and doing this while on Congressional Internet access, will have those changes tweeted (like this). Some of these

Dominic McDevitt-Parks

Jul 30, 2014

Customization is Key to Better Mobile User Experience

Resources like Theresa Neil’s Mobile Design Product Gallery book and Mobile-patterns.com describe, and provide examples of, common features mobile developers can implement and tailored further to satisfy their users. As mentioned in this week’s Trends on Tuesday, customizing apps to meet

Katie Steffy

Jul 30, 2014

“Deconstructing” Public Prize Competitions Can Result in Better Solutions

When faced with a big, daunting problem to solve, it’s human nature to try to tackle it by breaking it down into smaller parts and taking it “one step at a time.” The message from a recent DigitalGov University webinar on public prize competitions (AKA ‘challenges’) was that the government can often receive better solutions

Tim Lowden

Jul 29, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: Avoid the “App Graveyard”

Apps that are downloaded, used a few times and then never used again, are considered part of the “app graveyard.” In fact, 95% of apps are discarded within a month of download by users. Focus on creating a great user experience to make sure your agency apps are used consistently.

Jacob Parcell

Katie Steffy

Jul 29, 2014

Take a Gander at Our /Developer Page!

A growing trend both inside government and outside is to have a simple welcoming page for outside developers who may be interested in your team’s efforts. This material is often located at website.gov/developer 1 and points visitors to technical material that developers may be interested in, especially APIs. Collecting technical documentation in one place facilitates

Gray Brooks

Jul 28, 2014

Should Your Agency Be Offering Chat Service?

Live Web chat is an important component of good customer service. People like having the option of talking with an agent in real-time without having to pick up the phone. While live chat is not widespread, several agencies have shown great success in serving the public through this alternative channel. At a recent Government Contact

Tonya Beres

Jul 28, 2014

5 Key Points About Government Branding Now

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking (in my own capacity) before the Council for Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency Public Affairs Officers (CIGIE-PAO) task force about branding. The invitation came by way of a colleague I greatly respect. Bridget Serchak is currently Chief of Public Affairs for the Department of Defense Inspector General and

Dannielle Blumenthal

Jul 25, 2014

How the American Battle Monument Commission Developed its First Mobile App

The job of the American Battle Monument Commission (AMBC) is to manage all overseas cemeteries and memorials from WWI and WWII. There are over 200,000 veterans who are buried or memorialized at these cemeteries. When ABMC began thinking about releasing a native

Zeshan Khan

Jul 24, 2014

The API Briefing: Mapping Food Deserts – The USDA Economic Research Service’s GIS Map Services

Food deserts are areas where residents have little or no access to nutritional food. Food deserts exist because of low-incomes, lack of transportation, or too few stores that stock produce and other healthy food items. Governments from the local level to federal have implemented grant programs to encourage grocery store construction in the food deserts.

Bill Brantley

Jul 23, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: FCC Finds Rise in Mobile Internet Subscriptions

Approximately 70% of American households have a fixed Internet source of 0.2 megabits per second or greater, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Measuring Broadband Across America Report that analyzes the digital divide in the U.S. Up 15% in the last decade, this increase in Internet subscription source

Katie Steffy

Jul 22, 2014

You’ve just found a great open source fed agency app on the Mobile Code Sharing Catalog, and would love to use one of its cool functionalities for your own agency’s app. As federal agencies release more and more code to the open source

Jacob Parcell

Michael Pulsifer

Jul 21, 2014