News and Updates

The Standards team hosted their first AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the public in August. Here’s a breakdown of the big topics discussed during the chat.

As custom software development becomes integral to accomplishing any program’s mission, many managers in government find themselves faced with handling the unfamiliar: overseeing the design and implementation of a digital product that is functional, user-friendly, and necessary for realizing your program’s mission.

A Washington, D.C. think tank recently released reports advocating using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to reorganize the federal government.

Since it’s been nearly six months since their report was released, we wanted to check in with ITIF and see what they’ve learned, what they’ve heard from agencies and what their future plans are to build on this research.

Building empathy towards users is always a part of the UX process, but it’s not always common practice to build empathy towards our teammates. Here’s an idea to proactively address conflict and build empathy through understanding on your team.

Blockchains are an innovative technology which promises to radically change how society conducts business. It will take significant changes in organizational processes before agencies can begin to support blockchains.

This post was originally published on the USA.gov blog.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Meals on Wheels America have created multilingual educational resources about financial scams that target the elderly which can be easily distributed to seniors in the communities they serve, and downloaded or ordered in bulk for free by the general public. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Consumer Education &

The USDA’s multilingual FoodKeeper app has been updated to include three options for receiving food recall updates and expands storage timelines to over 500 products. This post was originally published on the USDA blog. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced new updates to its popular FoodKeeper application that will provide users with new access to

Learning—and practicing—five imperatives of network leadership can help agencies improve their odds for successful digital transformation. Many organizations are undergoing digital transformation because the organizations see that it is necessary for long-term survival. However, digitally reinventing the organization is “one of the hardest journeys to make.” According to industry experts, two-thirds of organizations will fail

This post was originally published by Code.gov on Medium. It’s been a year since the federal government published the Federal Source Code Policy, which created the foundation for Code.gov. In honor of the policy’s anniversary, we checked in with our users to learn more about them, their needs, and the challenges they face. Our users

This post was originally published on the HIV.gov blog. Editor’s Note: At HIV.gov, our team calls include a weekly update on digital trends. These updates allow us to stay current and inform our work. We recently asked HIV.gov’s former digital strategist to suggest ways our HIV partners can stay up to date with social media trends.

This is part of an ongoing series highlighting the innovations and research happening at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wounded warriors who dream of returning to playing hockey, climbing mountains or simply brushing their teeth with ease can look to 3-D printing innovations at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to

Joel Minton, a member of the U.S. Digital Service, is working with GSA’s Technology Transformation Service as the director of login.gov. Tom Mills is the Chief Technology Architect at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In early April, the U.S. Digital Service and 18F launched login.gov, a single sign-on solution for government websites that will enable

Open data and emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers, such as blockchain—hold vast potential to transform public services held back by bureaucracy and outdated IT systems.

Categorizing and Describing Cybersecurity Work for the Nation The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) is pleased to announce the release of Special Publication 800-181, the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. This publication serves as a fundamental reference to support a workforce capable of meeting an organization’s cybersecurity needs. It provides organizations with a common, consistent

Information systems—from communications platforms to internet-connected devices—require both security and privacy safeguards to work successfully and protect users in our increasingly complex and interconnected world. Toward these ends, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued a new draft revision of its widely used Special Publication (SP) 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Information

How user interviews helped spotlight the needs of a previously forgotten group. We may not like to admit it, but, most web services or sites have users that (for whatever reason) just aren’t well understood—and in turn, not well served. Conducting user interviews and making sure you get good participation from those groups can help

Now that we have seen the top level shift from desktop to mobile, let us drill deeper into mobile device specific trends.

When I was in the private sector, around the year 2000, I worked for an information technology (IT) consulting company as a project manager and developer. On one project, I provided support for early mobile devices given to medical students. I worked in a small office around the corner from the cardio-respiratory simulator (CRS). The