News and Updates

Many government websites are informational in nature – you don’t sign up for things or buy anything. Instead, you look for something – a name, a ruling, some contact information. Informational sites – and scientific sites in particular – can be a challenge to design. With so much information, how do you make the important

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info. This entry is a story shared by the General Services Administration. The Child Care Information Portal is a responsively designed web site built by General Services Administration’s Office of the Chief

Are you creating a mobile website or app for your agency? On Tuesday, October 30, at 11 a.m. we will host a webinar to get agencies thinking about how they can prepare for the entire life cycle of their mobile products—from planning–to implementing—to continually updating and upgrading. This webinar will

“Dark Social” media took the web by storm this week, unveiling to many the shadows in measuring your social media impact. This accounts for the majority of your traffic and yet lives untraced where standard metrics fear to tread (or simply cannot) — places like email and instant

Not all usability changes are dramatic. Sometimes a few small tweaks can make a site significantly easier to navigate, or make important but hidden content pop off the page. The DigitalGov User Experience Program helped test Insite, GSA’s intranet, on September 21, 2011. GSA took the feedback from their usability test and made some changes to the

Websites allow newer government programs to establish a visual identity that introduces them to users and conveys the importance of their work. On April 18, 2012, the DigitalGov User Experience Program helped test GSA’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) site, which at that point was less than six months old. Three immediate needs were

After watching a DigitalGov User Experience Program testing session, ONRR stakeholders and the testing team identified three major issues that could be quickly fixed to make the site more usable for its audience.

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info. This entry is a story shared by National Cancer Institute. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the nation’s leading cancer research agency and part of the National Institutes of Health has a legislative mandate to collect, organize, and disseminate the

Automated translation is touted as a one click solution. But is it? From time to time, the listserv lights up with the issue of translating websites into other languages and I’ve seen the interest increase as Web managers struggle to comply with competing mandates to serve their customers. Many Web managers are tasked with installing

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info. This entry is a story shared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Medicare.gov is the consumer website for Medicare beneficiaries, caregivers, and advocates. The site includes information about Medicare plans, coverage, and care

Yesterday marked three months since the release of the Digital Government Strategy and agencies have been making great strides in meeting the milestones toward building a 21st Century Government.

In his May 23rd, 2012 Presidential Memorandum, President Obama directed Executive Departments and Agencies to implement the requirements of the Digital Government Strategy, and create a page at www.[agency].gov/digitalstrategy to publicly report progress of this implementation.

SMS or Short Message Service (Texting) is a mobile device capability where users are able to send short (generally 160 characters maximum) text messages to another user via the use of the keypad or built-in keyboard. Seventy-three percent of cell phone owners use their device to text,

To help agencies produce better decision-making across the organization about how to best spend resources on digital services and manage their data, the Digital Government Strategy tasked the Digital Services Advisory Group with “recommending guidelines on agency-wide governance structure for developing and

Kids and adults use Web search tools differently. Kids fail more often, because they often don’t have enough knowledge or experience to search using the right keywords, or understand search results. If you’re designing websites for kids, remember that they use search tools differently than adults. Kids prefer surfing over searching.

Federal agency mobile implementation is an important aspect of the Digital Government Strategy, so last week the Mobile Gov team and Digital Gov University partnered for a “Mobile First” Webinar. A “mobile first” approach is where new websites and applications are designed for mobile devices first, instead of designed for the traditional desktop. Representatives from government and the private sector

USAGov and USAGov en Español (formerly known as GobiernoUSA.gov) use social media to make government information easy for people to find, access, and use. Among the essential tools we use are videos, which we host on USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov’s YouTube channels.

There’s an easier way to get content and data into the hands of citizens. Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, are web services that allow people to more easily consume content and data in multiple ways–via mobile devices, mobile apps, innovative mash-ups, and much more. Simply put, “APIs are a better way to get government information

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info. This entry is a story shared by Healthfinder.gov. The actual healthfinder.gov site was launched approximately twelve years ago, while the API is a fairly recent development that has occurred in the past year and

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info. This entry is a story shared by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS2Go app lets taxpayers check on the status of their refund, sign up for helpful tax tips or get the most recent IRS