DOL Labor Stats App

Mobile Gov Experiences are agency stories about creating anytime, anywhere, any device government services and info.

The Labor Stats Application presents the most up-to-date numbers and news releases for top employment statistics published by Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Why We Did It

The Labor Department created the app to better share important information using the fastest, simplest, most wide-reaching means available, and this app increases the accessibility of Labor’s statistical data.

What We Did

The Labor Department developed both the Android and iOS app simultaneously using each platform’s native software development kits over a two week period. The app uses the data from DOL’s own application programming interface (API) thus providing real-time updates.

How It Worked

Launched October, 2011, the Android app has been downloaded 1,400 times and the iPhone app 2,600 times. By using a developer key with the API, the Department of Labor will be able to gather mobile data use to track the apps’ usage.

What We Learned

User interface (UI) standards differences between the platforms can be subtle, but no less important. Our goal was to ensure that the platforms’ conventions were faithfully followed so that we would not end up expecting the users to learn a new way to do what they already do in other apps on their device. Given that the Android conventions were rather thin, we looked to the standard built-in apps made by Google themselves for guidance on the Android way. Google’s newly published UI guidelines for Android 4 are welcome guidance.