Gobiernousagov

Testing Beta for Accessibility

The USAGov team strives to ensure all our websites are accessible to as many people as possible. This includes those who need the use of specialized assistive technologies when browsing the internet. In building beta.USA.gov we deliberately validated that it met Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 compliance requirements. Our testing approach includes a three step hybrid method that may be suitable for other agency use. — via USA.gov

Mar 16, 2023

Creating a New Way for People To Discover Government Benefits

Creating a New Way for People To Discover Government Benefits—To make it even easier for everyone to find services and benefits without needing to understand government structure, we’re developing a new digital tool in partnership with 10x, GSA’s incremental technology fund. BEARS, the Benefits Eligibility Awareness Resource Service, is an important step forward in providing an integrated, simple solution for federal benefits to improve the customer experience and will eventually cover all federal benefits from all agencies. — via USA.gov

Mar 15, 2022

Three Ways USAGov Outreach Can Help with Your Agency’s Next Campaign

Three Ways USAGov Outreach Can Help with Your Agency’s Next Campaign—Does your agency have an idea for a new marketing strategy? USAGov’s Outreach team can support your agency in all stages of your campaign. We can brainstorm with your team, discuss best practices, and try new marketing approaches to grow together in serving people. Learn how to begin partnering with us. — via USA.gov

Nov 17, 2021

Multilingual

USAGov en Español Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month

Since 2003, one program in GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS) has been leading the way in which the government serves the Spanish-speaking community in the U.S. That program is USAGov en Español, the official guide to government information and services in Spanish.

USAGov Outreach Team

Oct 06, 2021

USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov Measure Content Efficiency With New KPI Metric

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

Jessica Milcetich

Sep 12, 2017

In a Marketing Minute: Connecting Teams, Promotions, and Ideas

Every first week of every month, USAGov’s marketing team sends an office-wide email newsletter to give an update on past and current marketing efforts and campaigns. It’s how we try to help keep the rest of the office in the know. The monthly newsletter can spur a content idea, a future marketing endeavor, and act

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Dec 05, 2016

GobiernoUSA, just like USA.gov, is part of a unique effort with a large mission—to guide people to the government information and services they seek. We cover a lot of topics in Spanish via our website, social media platforms, email sends, and contact center. One of the communication channels we focus a lot of attention on

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Oct 28, 2016

Microsites, They’re Bigger Than You Think

Lately, we have been hearing a lot about microsites—CDC’s Zika Virus microsite provides up-to-date information on the virus—but the big question is: What are they? A microsite is a single or small collections of pages that are meant to encourage user interaction while conveying information. A microsite has the power to educate consumers regarding a

Christen Geiler

Apr 21, 2016

Transcreation: Why Do We Need It?

Transcreation is a relatively new term that blends the words translation and creation. In a nutshell, transcreation involves taking a concept in one language and completely recreating it in another language. A successfully transcreated message (either written or visual) evokes the same emotions and carries the same implications in the target language as it does

Andrea M. Castelluccio

Apr 08, 2016

What do Mac & Cheese and Power of Attorneys Have in Common?

They ranked among our top three most popular emails in 2015. At USAGov, we know that email is often our #1 driver of traffic to our content, and nine out of 10 times it’s our go-to outreach tool for disseminating timely information. But doing email sends consistently and effectively isn’t always clear cut, especially when

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Feb 26, 2016

Hispanics are one of fastest growing demographics in the U.S. But like any demographic, there are important nuances to consider when connecting with this audience. Insight into your audience’s motivations, behavior and preferences is key for anyone trying to engage with the public. We know every day that more and more Hispanics are on social

Leilani Martinez

Jessica Milcetich

Edgardo Morales

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Nov 05, 2015

Are Videos in Spanish the Way To Go?

The answer may surprise you. It takes time, resources and actual money. Why prepare a video for something that can be written about and released in

Edgardo Morales

Sep 15, 2015

Search, Buscar, Поиск, جستجو, Cari: Creating a Good, Multilingual Search Experience

Government agencies across the United States publish content in a growing number of languages to do the business of the country. In 2015, DigitalGov Search dramatically expanded support for languages on our search results page, expanding from just English and Spanish to support 68 different languages.

Dawn Pointer McCleskey

Aug 31, 2015

Betting on email: How We’re Reaching Hispanics via Their Inbox

Driving visitors to a destination means reaching your users where they are at. In 2005, as part of the greater USA.gov marketing strategy, GobiernoUSA.gov launched an email program. These communications initially took the form of short blurbs that directed people to important site content and promoted other government information hosted by various federal agencies. From

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Leilani Martinez

Jun 23, 2015

Real Internationalization Isn’t Just Geographic: It’s Linguistic

Twenty years ago, the chances of watching an NBA game with commentary in a language other than English were small. Today, the NBA transmits games in 47 languages to 215 countries across the world. This is a perfect example of how organizations have evolved over time to meet the demands of their audiences. Evidence like

Jessica Milcetich

Leilani Martinez

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Edgardo Morales

Jun 19, 2015

USA.gov in Beta: Tell Us What You Think

Thirteen years in digital is an eon, and on the eve of its 13th birthday, we at USA.gov found ourselves reckoning with a mid-life crisis. In the thirteen years since Firstgov.gov was launched (and ten years for FirstGov en Español), the sheer volume and sophistication

Sarah Crane

May 04, 2015

Cross-Agency Collaboration Is the Key to Reaching Millions

This story begins with a post about reverse mortgages, but don’t worry: we won’t go into the world of complex home loans. Rather, this is a story about how one federal agency is partnering with another to amplify its content and reach millions of people online—and why more agencies should do the same. Many federal

Laura Godfrey

Apr 27, 2015

Animated gifs are increasingly found throughout the digital experience of today’s users.

Justin Herman

Apr 24, 2015

Using Personas to Better Understand Customers: USA.gov Case Study

Personas are fictional characters that describe an organization’s customer behaviors, emotions, attributes, motivations, and goals. They are an important tool to share customer insights and understanding across an organization. Personas also serve as a check to make sure your organization’s actions meet the needs of the majority of customers, including visitors to your website, contact

Michelle Chronister

Apr 06, 2015

Spanish Language Mobile Apps from Gobierno.USA.gov

In mobile app development, if you aren’t making it multilingual, you miss providing anytime, anywhere information and services to important mobile-only audiences. Today, we’re highlighting five Spanish language apps from the Spanish Version of the USA.gov Federal Mobile Apps Directory.

Ashley Wichman

Jan 15, 2015

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