News and Updates

The Social Security Administration recently announced their new optimized mobile website which is compatible with Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and Windows devices. The mobile website offers a user-friendly, tabular, icon-driven navigation, which makes it very easy to find information anytime, anywhere.

Anytime, anywhere government information and services are becoming more important as the public increasingly consumes information and services on the go. As we announced last week, agencies can now get assistance with their mobile development efforts with our new Mobile Application Development Program. Tomorrow, we will host

Having a keyword search strategy is critical for government agencies to: Gain awareness, Secure a strong online presence and Help the public obtain the information they need. Since the public relies heavily on Government-related information for research, and a myriad of other tasks, each government

Functionality testing verifies that the functions of a product or service is working as intended. Each function is tested by providing appropriate input, verifying the output and comparing the actual results with the expected results. Usability testing measures the ease of use and intuitiveness of a product or service by asking users to perform a

The federal government’s Mobile Code Catalog has company! This month, NASCIO released a new State Mobile Apps Catalog, a collection of over 160 state and territory native mobile apps that users can browse and download for smart phones and tablets. The apps are searchable by state/territory,

Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device. The 21st century imperative to deliver government information and services to the public anytime, anywhere and on any device makes mobile a critical tactic in the federal Digital Government Strategy.

Data.gov launched a major upgrade today, moving to a new catalog based on an open source data management system called CKAN. In the process of migrating to a new data catalog, Data.gov had the opportunity to do another round

These are the elements that make up a well-rounded developer hub. Homepage The API efforts of any agency should all be accessible via one easy to reach developers hub. This Web page should provide a path to all public APIs and any associated resources. Once an agency has begun to publish multiple APIs, certain resources

The new Healthcare.gov will sort content according to user demand with a new plugin developed for the site. For a content-heavy site like healthcare.gov, this option will allow HHS to serve popular content to readers quickly. In April we told you about Jekyll. The new Healthcare.gov will use this

These are the elements you should include in your federal API release. Homepage Each of your public APIs needs a page to serve as a hub to provide access to all information and tools associated with it. By using the page’s sidebar, footer, and sub pages, you can directly include or link to each of

The Center’s for Disease and Control has developed a mobile website and a mobile app so users can access information anytime, anywhere, on any device. The mobile website was developed to allow users to access a subset of CDC’s content on mobile devices. These sections include

The National Day of Civic Hacking is bringing together thousands of civic hackers on June 1st and 2nd. But what is a civic hacker, anyway? “Civic hackers” as we think about it for the National Day of Civic Hacking are technologists, civil servants, designers, entrepreneurs, engineers –

Federal agencies have a new resource to help them make content and services available anytime, anywhere, and from any device–the federal Mobile Code Catalog sponsored by the Digital Services Innovation Center. This catalog is hosted on GitHub (more on why that matters in a moment).

Twitter Chat discussing anxiety, stress, and complementary health practices December 18, 2012

The U.S. Postal Service Mobile app can help you find a post office, calculate shipping prices and track packages. Since we last featured this app, the USPS has added the ability to schedule pickups and order supplies. Last month, USPS Mobile version 3.8 was released. The new version allows users

“APIs for WhiteHouse.gov? What in the heck does that mean?” Like President Obama, you may be asking the same question.

Apps challenges are a great way to spur innovation and help your agency meet its mission. But before you jump in, learn about how apps challenges work, to ensure yours is successful. Design Concept or Functioning App? What kind of product do you want from your apps challenge? A working app; or A concept for

Last week, we told you about the upcoming relaunch of Healthcare.gov and its use of the Jekyll website generator. Jekyll allows users to build dynamic websites served by static pages. To help manage large websites using Jekyll, developers working on the new healthcare.gov published the ‘Prose.io’ editing interface

Mobile is a fast moving technology leaving many agencies feeling behind the contracting eight-ball. Between finding those rockstar mobile developers, figuring out what to ask for in a statement of work (SOW), the time it takes getting a contract to get those expert resources, agencies are challenged in making

Don’t include Internet music, video, or graphics in your video unless you understand the copyright. Yes, this is a pain, but companies take copyright very seriously and regularly file both takedown notices and lawsuits against offenders.