News and Updates

Innovative work, news, and ideas from people and teams in government

Write for us

Kids.gov – Usability Case Study

For a children’s site, Kids.gov is pretty old—it was launched back in 2001. And it has the unenviable task of trying to keep pace with the rapidly changing online habits of youngsters. So in 2012, Kids.gov Director Arlene Hernandez thought her site was due a usability test with its two main audiences: kids and their
Apr 02, 2014

Digital Analytics Program (DAP): Oceans of Data

In the last 15 months, the federal Digital Analytics Program (DAP) monthly Web traffic has grown to more than 1.1 billion views gov-wide, providing Web analytics to 29 U.S. federal cabinet-level agencies and nearly 3,000 public-facing government Web properties.
Apr 01, 2014

Get Started with Challenge and Prize Competitions

Interested in running a challenge and prize competition, but don’t know where to start? Well, here are all the resources GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies has to offer: 1) Challenge.gov. Put your agency’s challenges on this government-wide listing and learn about more than 300 public
Mar 31, 2014

Challenge and Competition Service Providers

I’m sure many of you have heard the expression “there’s an app for that.” Well, now you can say “there’s a schedule for that” as you plan challenge and prize competitions with your colleagues. In 2010, GSA was asked to build Challenge.gov and set up a schedule (a list
Mar 28, 2014

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Launches New, Mobile Friendly Website

There’s a LOT going on at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and you don’t want to miss it: Seizures of illegal drug and counterfeit cash. Arrests of human smugglers. Even the interception of imported “pests” (most recently, a new slug found in the Washington area that goes by the name
Mar 27, 2014

National Weather Service: Think Social Training

For the last several years the National Weather Service has been rolling out social media accounts for all of their 122 field offices. Each office now has a Facebook page, Twitter handle and YouTube account to better communicate our life saving messages to the public. As these accounts were
Mar 27, 2014

What to Do with Big Data?

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama launched the Open Government Initiative, an effort to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration in the federal government. The initiative introduced a number of websites and strategies to offer raw government data, including research grant information
Mar 27, 2014

Measuring User Experience: A Few Tips

With a calculated process, the right tools, and a staff willing to make it work, you can measure user experience (UX) on your websites and implement usability changes that show results. In a recent DigitalGov University webinar entitled “Measuring User Experience”, UX supporters and practitioners heard from Achaia Walton, Senior Digital Analyst at the Department
Mar 26, 2014
Building quality mobile products is the greatest challenge for succeeding in the mobile space according to an infographic by SmartBear. One key to developing quality mobile products is testing, as “nearly 50% of consumers will delete an app if they encounter just a single bug.” As a result the following processes are used to ensure
Mar 25, 2014

DigitalGov Search: Our Open Source Strategy

At DigitalGov Search, we keep an eye on on our what our government counterparts are up to, both in the U.S. and other countries. We recently came across Gov.UK’s philosophy on and approach to coding in the open. It caught our attention and we realized we should also articulate our open source strategy. Use and Contribute to Open
Mar 24, 2014

Announcing beta.usgs.gov

In 1994 when the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) launched it’s first website, the Web was a very different place. Many websites that were launched had little consideration given to, or even had an understanding of, things such user experience, content strategies, or design. Over the next 20 years our
Mar 21, 2014

Get a grip on injury, death rates with new mobile app from CDC

Need to make a pitch for injury prevention? About to give an impromptu public health presentation that can benefit from a few sobering data points about leading causes of death in your state? (Or maybe you just have a keen interest in the macabre while waiting for the bus.) Well, go grab your iPads: The Center
Mar 20, 2014

HHS Uses Crowdsourcing in Booming mHealth Industry

The mobile health (mHealth) market is projected to become a $50 billion industry by 2020, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been actively contributing to the rise of the mHealth applications. The agency uses public prize competitions like the recent “Game On: HIV/STD Prevention Mobile Application Video Game Challenge” to crowdsource a
Mar 19, 2014

Data.gov – Usability Case Study

We all know listening to your customers is important. Not just reading their comments, but talking to them, actually getting in a room with them, and having them test your product. But if basing a whole-scale redesign around one series of user conversations makes you nervous – it should. That’s because sometimes when we listen,
Mar 18, 2014