United States Office Of Personnel Management

Finding Usability Testers: Tips from an Army Recruiter

An Army recruiter shares how her training in the Army has helped in her approach to usability testing, and gives a peek inside how usability testing works for USAJOBS.gov at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Meghan Lazier

Sep 28, 2017

Analytics Success Series: USAJOBS

USAJOBS’ Analytics Success: using analytics to create accurate testing strategies. Accurate testing strategies are crucial to ensure quality products. Hi-fidelity approaches ensure QA efforts are testing in a true-to-life manner, similar to real-world users. Inaccurate, lo-fidelity testing can miss situational bugs that become showstoppers in production. USAJOBS is leveraging the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) to

Cory Benavente

Dywane Boyd

Sep 15, 2016

The Data Briefing: An Interview with USAJOBS on New Changes to Their Data Services

The Office of Personnel Management released a new look and functionality to USAJOBS in February. I recently contacted Michelle Earley, the USAJOBS Program Manager, to ask about the changes to USAJOBS and the data it provides. 1. What are

Bill Brantley

Mar 30, 2016

The Benefits of Being Push-y: Reaching Your Audience Through Push Notifications

Need to get in touch with your audience? Give them a little push. Push notifications allow agencies to connect with their audiences for immediate communication. The Office of Personnel Management’s OPM Alert app provides a real time look at the current operating status for federal offices in the Washington, DC, area and uses push technology

Ashley Wichman

Feb 23, 2016

OPM Wants to Hear from You by December 9

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is looking for agency subject matter experts (SMEs) to participate in an occupational study of the Public Affairs Series 1035. OPM is accepting SME submissions until Wednesday, December 9th. The study will review the “current classification and qualification standards for public affairs work” and allow OPM to make any revisions

Andrea Sigritz

Nov 27, 2015

Government Product Managers Play a Key Role in UX

Government product managers sit at the intersection of three circles—business, design and technology. We play a key role in user experience (UX), because we are tasked with understanding users to build a product that is desirable and viable. This product could be a paper or online form, a website or a mobile app. Product management

Karen Trebon

Nov 27, 2015

The API Briefing: EPA’s Water Quality Portal API Merges Three Data Streams

Access to clean water is fast becoming a vital issue in the 21st century. Changing climate patterns are drying up aquifers and limiting the amount of water runoff from thawing snow packs. Drought conditions in California are effecting hydroelectric production while dry conditions in the West have increased the frequency

Bill Brantley

Oct 15, 2014

The API Briefing: CDC’s API Delivers Free Up-To-Date Health Information for Your Blog or Website

The recent Ebola outbreaks demonstrate the need for current and authoritative health news. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the federal information source for Ebola and other infectious diseases, along with other public health data. Data.CDC.gov lists 48 datasets and views containing statistics from smoking to infectious diseases. Developers can use the

Bill Brantley

Oct 08, 2014

The API Briefing: A Great Start For an API – NLM’s TOXNET Web Service

Glad to be back after a three-week absence. I was preparing for the South Eastern Conference on Public Administration held in Atlanta this year. Great conversations and I can tell you that the academic community is hungry for more government data and APIs. A great example is this week’s API Briefing: the U.S. National Library

Bill Brantley

Oct 01, 2014

The API Briefing: Finding Help for the Elderly – The ElderCare Locator API

If you have ever been a caregiver for an elderly family member or friend, you know that there are many resources to help you in giving care. But finding these resources can be difficult and frustrating. The Administration on Aging in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been guiding people to local

Bill Brantley

Sep 03, 2014

System Usability Scale (SUS): Improving Products Since 1986

Trying to measure usability can be a head scratcher. How easy something is to use depends on where you are, who you are, and a number of other factors. Luckily in the world of usability, there exists a post-test survey known as the System Usability Scale, introduced in 1986 by an engineer named John Brooke,

Georgia Gallavin

Aug 29, 2014

Help OPM Use SocialGov to Reinvent Fed Recruitment and Recognition

Here at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, we recently announced two exciting new government-wide working group teams with the mission of helping us use social media in ways we haven’t explored before. We’re hoping to recruit federal employees

Jennifer Dorsey

Mark Anthony Dingbaum

Aug 29, 2014

The API Briefing: Mining the Rich Data Resources of NASA – The International Space Apps Challenges

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has an enormous collection of aerospace and science data sets. NASA missions and projects can create amazing amounts of data. One example: the Earth Observing System Data and Information System has collected enough information to fill the Library of Congress (Data.NASA.gov). A more recent example: the Solar Dynamics

Bill Brantley

Aug 27, 2014

The API Briefing: Back to School – U.S. Department of Education APIs

As the new school season approaches, it is a good time to see what federal datasets are available for educational app developers. Visit the developers’ page at ED.gov to find 36 educational datasets for educational levels. The datasets can be accessed in CSV, JSON,

Bill Brantley

Aug 20, 2014

The API Briefing: Writable APIs – The Federal Register.gov Commenting Feature

FederalRegister.gov just released a writable API that allows citizens to comment directly on proposed regulations. When a user is viewing a regulation on FederalRegister.gov, he or she can click on the “Submit a Formal Comment” button. A textbox appears, and the comment is recorded for that particular regulation.

Bill Brantley

Aug 13, 2014

The API Briefing: RealTrack – How Hackathons Help Create Apps from APIs

Once a federal agency releases an API, there are several ways they can be used in apps. The most common method is through hackathons. Hackathons are where an agency or agencies present the API(s) and invite developers to create prototype apps. The apps

Bill Brantley

Jul 16, 2014

Lean Startup: Changing Government Services and Agencies to Better Serve the Citizens

It is easy to start a business today and especially an Internet-based business. Using the cloud, APIs, and hosted applications, an entrepreneur can quickly build a website/mobile app. The entrepreneur can hire freelancers to do everything from creating a logo to writing a business plan. Virtual assistant services can provide on-demand staff to meet business

Bill Brantley

Jul 11, 2014

The API Briefing: APIs Come In Many (Data) Flavors

This week, we will look at three different APIs that demonstrate how agencies use different technologies to serve out data. Presenting data in various formats encourages developers to build on federal APIs. As past columns have shown, the innovative apps created with federal data are quickly growing. The latest API news this week is how

Bill Brantley

Jul 02, 2014

The API Briefing: Quick Guide to Using GitHub – FDA’s OpenFDA Research Project

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just released the OpenFDA Research Project. At the heart of the project is the OpenFDA API, which allows developers to perform searches on FDA’s drug information database. Coming soon is the ability to search FDA information on medical devices and information about food. Visit the

Bill Brantley

Jun 11, 2014

The API Briefing: NARA’s Federal Register API – Learning How APIs Work

Application programming interfaces (APIs) can be confusing when people first hear of the concept. There are the many acronyms like REST (Representational State Transfer) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) that further obscure what APIs do. The idea behind APIs is quite simple: APIs are how computer programs share information between themselves. You can experience this for

Bill Brantley

Jun 04, 2014

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