See how our Office of Strategic Communication used A/B testing to resolve a difference of opinion within a cross-functional design team.
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2020
Communication
Good written and verbal communications make the government more effective and trustworthy.
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Learn about the skills and needs of American readers, how we are failing our audiences, and ways to do better.
2020
Findability
Experimenting with SpecialAnnouncement Markup (Updated June 09, 2020)
What USA.gov learned during its pilot with SpecialAnnouncement markup to make COVID-19 information easier to find in search results, now updated to reflect changes by major search engines.
Connecting Americans to Coronavirus Information Online
The American people need access to the most up-to-date public health guidance and information on coronavirus testing facilities. To help Americans find coronavirus information online, incorporate Schema.org’s new standard tags into all web pages related to COVID-19.— via The White House
Let’s Talk Shop: How USAGov Outreach Connects With Agency Partners
USAGov Outreach connects with agency partners in a variety of ways—if you’re from a federal agency looking for new ways to reach your audience, learn about partnering with USAGov!— via USA.gov
Watch this special presentation featuring 18f Content Strategist, Ryan Johnson, where he discusses how you can effectively write accessible web content.
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2020
Matt Ross, of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions Government & Advocacy team, will share tips and best practices on how to improve your agency’s use of content to maximize engagement with your core audience.
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2019
This seminar adapts principles of plain language to the context of speaking, covering not only wording but also structure and integration with visual aids.
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2019
We’ll discuss how to document and publicize your formal and informal plain language work — teaching, training, reviewing, or copyediting.
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2019
Designing for Translation
Learn simple planning steps to successfully translate content into multiple languages.
The USAGov team will talk about their new Partnership Toolkit and focus on how government agencies can partner with USAGov to market various programs and services.
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2018
New USAGov Program Aims to Help Agencies Market Within the Federal Government
The Outreach and Marketing team from USAGov helps agencies amplify their key messages through a variety of channels.
The Data Briefing: How to Build a Chatbot in a Weekend
As chatbots have become more popular, some online sites will let you create a chatbot with little or no programming.
Design and Conflict: Do You Know Your Conflict Style?
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.
How Federal Leaders Can Build the Will, Skill, and Velocity Needed for Digital Transformation
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
Webinar Recap: Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) June Meeting
This June 2017 meeting featured the presentation, Plain Language Spectrum: Every Step Counts!
Build Your Audience by Hosting a Twitter Chat
Twitter is more than just a platform for sharing news and updates: it can be a tool for directly communicating with your community and understanding what is important to them. One way you can connect with your Twitter audience is by hosting a Twitter Chat. They can be a good way to discuss key topics,
Improving Stakeholder Collaboration Can Improve Software Development Performance
It’s important for software development organizations to make it as easy as possible to enable improved stakeholder behavior. Development stakeholders can include business development representatives, product managers, and senior project managers, and they are typically carrying the weight of the organization’s mission. They are concerned about the organization’s goals, and are usually focused on ensuring
Letting Go of 85 Percent of Our Email Subscribers
Late last year, Business.USA.gov (BUSA) began transitioning its web presence to USA.gov and with its content, came its social media and email accounts. While transferring ownership of a Twitter account is fairly easy to do from a technical standpoint, transferring email ownership and tools is not. We had to tackle
Writing for the Web Is Easy. Writing for Users Is Not.
We all do it. Whether on Twitter, Facebook, or the comment section on a news article, it’s easy to get our writing on the internet. Many of us have personal websites or contribute to blogs. We work at organizations with content management systems that allow us to publish pages with a single button click. The
