Mobile

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

Solving a MobileGov Mystery: Using Open Source CMS to Implement Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web design is widely-known as a go-to solution for designing a website to fit on any device’s screen size. As we found in our February workshop, federal agencies are implementing it for various reasons. There are various ways to implement responsive

Jacob Parcell

Katie Steffy

Jul 18, 2014

FEMA’s Responsive Disaster Assistance Website Helps Survivors Find, Apply for Aid

Hurricane Arthur, the first named storm of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall in North Carolina, July 3, as a Category 2 hurricane. It was no Sandy, but Arthur nevertheless reminds us to be prepared now and always. As we say at NOAA, “It only takes one.” That “one”

Jul 17, 2014

The API Briefing: RealTrack – How Hackathons Help Create Apps from APIs

Once a federal agency releases an API, there are several ways they can be used in apps. The most common method is through hackathons. Hackathons are where an agency or agencies present the API(s) and invite developers to create prototype apps. The apps

Bill Brantley

Jul 16, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: Mobile Drives Time on Digital Media

Major mobile milestones in May—try saying that three times! A new mobile usage report from ComScore revealed two significant shifts to mobile in May: total time spent on digital media and time spent on apps. Here are a few highlights from the report: Mobile platforms—smartphones and tablets—accounted for 60% of total time spent on digital

Treci Johnson

Jul 15, 2014

Mobile REMM App: New Physicians’ Aid

The Department of Health and Human Service’s Mobile REMM App provides physicians and emergency medical staff with the latest and greatest information concerning radioactive and nuclear emergencies. Available on iOS, Android, and Blackberry platforms, the native application showcases comprehensive information concerning dose

Katie Steffy

Jul 10, 2014

The API Briefing: How APIs Provide Localized Information – NOAA’s Weather Service Data and FCC’s Broadband Services Map

The two featured APIs this week are excellent demonstrations of personalizing federal government data by where a user lives. Federal agencies collect a considerable amount of community data, from the Census Bureau’s surveys to the FDA’s local agricultural conditions. Thanks to GPS, app developers can locate a user’s immediate geographical location and tailor information based

Bill Brantley

Jul 09, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: What Does Mobile-First Video Look Like?

Like many Americans during the last month, I developed FIFA fever. Checking on scores, anticipating the latest Google Doodle and watching game highlights became part of my daily iPhone routine. Despite the elimination of Team U.S.A, mobile video consumption continues to win new fans. Consider these mobile video viewing statistics: On average, consumers spend 33 minutes

Treci Johnson

Jul 08, 2014

Have a H(app)y Fourth of July from MobileGov

Washington. You can say a lot of things about this town, but one thing is clear: Fourth of July is our holiday. No one rocks Independence Day quite like we do, thanks to the hardworking people at the National Park Service who manage our National Mall and help stage a blockbuster fireworks celebration.

Jul 03, 2014

The API Briefing: APIs Come In Many (Data) Flavors

This week, we will look at three different APIs that demonstrate how agencies use different technologies to serve out data. Presenting data in various formats encourages developers to build on federal APIs. As past columns have shown, the innovative apps created with federal data are quickly growing. The latest API news this week is how

Bill Brantley

Jul 02, 2014

Using Analytics to Create Change: USA.gov Usability Case Study

While many people tout the death of the home page, it’s still an important piece of the user experience on USA.gov. In 2013, 30 percent of all sessions on USA.gov included the home page—that’s 8.67 million sessions. The numbers for GobiernoUSA.gov are even higher—79 percent of all sessions included the home page. According to Jakob Nielsen, “A

Michelle Chronister

Jul 01, 2014

Trends on Tuesday: Maximizing Your Mobile Moments

The rise of mobile device ownership is rapidly changing the way we, and our stakeholders, interact with organizations and information. From local weather to the status of our train, we look to our smartphones to not only provide the answers, but anticipate our questions. Forrester refers to this

Treci Johnson

Jul 01, 2014

Broadcasting Board of Governors Use “Relay” Tool to Cover the World Cup

World Cup fever, everyone’s got it—even the Broadcasting Board of Governors‘ (BBG) Voice of America has reporters covering the event. For this year’s World Cup, VOA has teamed up with the Office of Digital and Design Innovation (a digital team inside

Jacob Parcell

Jun 26, 2014

The API Briefing: The Census Bureau’s Discovery Tool – Find the Right API for Your App

The Census Bureau recently released a machine-readable dataset discovery service that lists 41 Census data sets.

Bill Brantley

Jun 25, 2014

Mobile devices are moving closer to the center of the social universe, according to this Sproutsocial article. Platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter are overwhelmingly used on the go. Comscore predicts that there will be increasing monetization via social in the coming years. In the banking industry, where data shows many people have stopped going to

Jacob Parcell

Jun 24, 2014

Hacking the Bureaucracy One Task at a Time

Are you having trouble getting training or professional development opportunities? Federal employees can gain access to a variety of professional development opportunities and work on digital projects across the government through the Open Opportunities program.

Lisa Nelson

Jun 23, 2014

DOT’s SaferCar App Goes Android

With the start of “astronomical summer” later this week on June 21, that means two things: road trips and car buying. If you’re doing either or both, best be sure to grab the app for the SaferCar program from the Department of Transportation’s

Jun 19, 2014

The API Briefing: Department of State’s Model App – Education USA

Not only does the Department of State have a great set of APIs, State also has an excellent example of how to build an informative and useful app. EducationUSA is a network of State Department advisers who help international students apply for U.S. university programs.

Bill Brantley

Jun 18, 2014

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