12 Big Ideas & Predictions for 2013
We saw some big changes across the federal government with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012. And it was a big year for innovation at the Department of Health & Human Services, where I’m part of a great team that’s working to transform us into the digital age. Looking forward, 2013 promises to be even bigger!
My colleagues at the Digital Communications Division at HHS and the Federal Web Managers Council have teamed up to bring you 12 big ideas & predictions for 2013:
- Help Wanted: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Coordinator will become official titles for positions within the federal government. Why does this matter? The right social media team can react quickly and effectively in time of crisis and take advantage of a Super Bowl-sized opportunity on the fly.
- 2013 will be the year that ‘m-dot’ died. More web managers will move to responsive design for their websites or mobile apps for targeted content.
- Not just responsive design. Responsive content too! Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement.
- At your service! The success of the Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov) will mean we are finally giving citizens the level of customization and personalization they’ve been getting for years from private sector services.
- May I have your attention please? The use of rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
- AP… what? Structured content and “content as data” will be game changers. This year, everybody will finally understand what an API is and what it does.
- #%@! Analytics & sentiment analysis will have a big impact on social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
- [INFOGRAPHIC] Infographics like this will grow in importance as a light, sharable, and printable alternative to video.
- Here’s to your health! Health data will hit the mainstream as key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year. And HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
- Open Government: Open source platforms will continue to dominate as content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government.
- Git with the program! If you haven’t heard of GitHub, Twitter Bootstrap, and LESS CSS, you will by the end of 2013. They may change the way we do web.
- Not just for zombies. Gamification, incentivization, and competition on social media platforms will help our content to go viral. Engagement – it’s not just for zombies anymore.
Let us know what you think and share your own ideas and predictions in the comments. Stay tuned for 12 more predictions coming soon.
Job Search Tools are Going Mobile
The Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration has a number of great online tools to help Americans find new employment or learn new skills from training providers in their community. In the past year alone, more than 40 million people have accessed these tools from their desktops. However, as technology changes, more and more people are using mobile/phone-based browsers to conduct the majority of their Web browsing. The department’s online resources are changing to keep up with the rapid growth and increased use of these devices and systems.
This week, we’ve made some of our most popular online tools available as mobile-optimized websites. These mobile sites give smartphone or tablet users quick access to key job search and training resources. Users can:
- Locate and contact the American Job Center closest to them.
- Conduct a Job Search by searching local job listings throughout the entire United States. Job listings are updated daily and can be searched by job type or keyword as well as by city, state or ZIP code.
- Perform a Veterans Job Search to match military job experience to civilian careers, and then view local job listings for those careers. Users can search by their military job title or their occupational classification (MOC/MOS) code and can view job listings by city, state or ZIP code.
- Browse the Salary Finder, which provides average hourly wages or annual salaries by occupation and location. The data come from the Occupational Employment Statistics program of the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Search the Training Finder for education and training programs in a specific area. Users can search by occupation, program or school, and then find contact information for the relevant program.
These changes are part of the department’s ongoing efforts to make workforce resources more open and accessible to the communities who need them most, and to ensure that job seekers have a range of tools at their fingertips.
Reblogged from Work in Progress, The Official Blog of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Analytics, APIs and Open Content Resources
Agencies have been working away at building better digital services and here, at the Digital Services Innovation Center, we’ve been building resources to help.
We have been focusing on three areas,
1. The Digital Analytics Program. We announced this program in early October to help agencies better measure performance and customer satisfaction to improve service delivery. It includes digital metrics guidance and best practices, training and a federal-wide Web analytics tool and support. We are rolling out the code for the tool to all agencies now. See more on the Digital Analytics Program and supercharge your analytics.
2. Open Content Management. To support infrastructure and content needs across the federal government, we developed a CMS toolkit with resources to help agencies choose, design and migrate to a content management system (CMS). A CMS not only helps agencies efficiently manage their online content, but also can help them move to an open content model, making it easier for people to find, share, use, and re-use government information. And, for agencies who need a government policy-compliant platform and hosting solution, we’ve alpha launched sites.usa.gov, an enterprise-ready CMS service in the cloud. We’re happy to help you get started.
3. API Resources. APIs have been called the “secret sauce” for digital services. They help open information (content and data) so it can be reused inside and outside of government. We’re helping agencies build out APIs by building out knowledge. Agencies can use the API Toolkit to learn API basics and see examples of APIs in government. We’ve also sponsored a six-part (and growing) API webinar series.
But much more important than the parts, is how this is working together to improve the service that government provides. Agencies are working on building out APIs and developer resources, like Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services. They are making services available via mobile like solutions being offered by USDA and the Government Printing Office. And some are doing both at the same time, like the Census Bureau at the Department of Commerce.
Let us know what else you need, and what you have(!) to help build the future of anytime, anywhere and any device government.
Redesigned www.dot.gov draws a crowd… and goes responsive
In October, we launched a redesigned and re-energized www.dot.gov to make it easier for you to find the information you need. The results from the past 60 days show we’ve made very good progress. And the best part? We’re just getting started.
For example, because they know that mobile device use is the future, last week our web team launched a truly responsive design. So now, when you visit our site using a mobile device, you won’t just benefit from a page that scales to your smaller screen–instead, you’ll see a page that rearranges itself to fit your device. We’re all pretty excited about this new development, and I think it’s a wonderful holiday gift to everyone who uses their smartphone or tablet to visit www.dot.gov.
Our goals for www.dot.gov are simple:
- To help you find what you need as easily as possible;
- To make the most popular resources more accessible; and
- To arrange our resources in line with how you think about transportation.
Just two months after our launch, our site statistics show that the decisions we made–using public input–are driving real results.
Visits to www.dot.gov have increased by 30 percent. That means our site is easier to find. And because the number of page views has grown even faster, that means that when people visit the site, they’re looking at more of what we offer and staying with us longer.What are they finding? Well, our new topic pages andaudience pages are among the most visited on the site. With these topic landing pages, we tried to organize our resources around the kind of transportation you might be interested in, instead of organizing it around DOT offices and agency acronyms.
These numbers show we’re heading down the right path, but there’s plenty of work left to be done. Our web team is testing the site regularly and reviewing the results to be sure you can find what you need, when you need it, and on whatever device you want to use.
One part of that is our customer survey. If that pops up while you’re browsing our site, please take the time to let us know how we’re doing and how we can make the site even more useful.
There’s also a feedback button on every single page so you can let us know what’s working and what isn’t.
After all, it might be our site, but you’re in the driver’s seat.
Reblogged from fastlane.dot.gov
Department of Energy Implements APIs in the Cloud
As part of the Digital Strategy, the Department of Energy is making more high-value data sets available through Application Program Interfaces (APIs) – helping programmers develop new opportunities, services and products for citizens. Additionally, these data sets and APIs are now housed on cloud-based servers, helping us to provide easy, scalable access to the public.
Moving our data sets to the cloud builds on the important steps the Energy Department has taken to advance cost-effective, secure cloud-hosted infrastructure solutions. For example, we have also moved our Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to the cloud to streamline operations. We are also adding data utility rates, hydrogen, energy apps and datasets to Open EI, an open-data source for a wide range of energy information. A few of our newest data sets include:
- The underlying data behind the Alternative Fueling Station Locator, which provides location-based alternative fuel station data for biodiesel, natural gas, propane, electric, hydrogen and ethanol.
- The DOE Green Energy API, offering data from research and development conducted by the Energy Department’s National Laboratories as well as university projects supported by the Department. The website provides two data sets on renewable energy and energy efficiency technical reports and patents.
- The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electricity API provides over 500,000 data points on generation, fuel quality, fuel consumption, and retail sales by generation plant and by state.
Learn more about the Energy Department’s work on the Digital Strategy.
Introducing assets.cms.gov !
This entry was reposted from the HHS.gov Digital Strategy Blog.
Have you heard about assets.cms.gov? Probably not, but if you work on or use CMS’ websites, it is a tool you use every day.
The Web & New Media Group (WNMG) started building assets.cms.gov about 10 months ago and completed the full launch of the site as part of the Medicare.gov redesign on August 21, 2012.
assets.cms.gov represents a shared code library for all of CMS’ public websites. As websites (ours and everyone else’s!) have grown in complexity over the past decade, they have come to be built on many common code and image libraries. These include the following file types:
- Website headers & footers
- Javascript libraries
- CSS (stylesheet) files
- Shared images
- HTML snippets
Many of these files are developed by CMS and/or contractors, but there are also many common code libraries used across almost all commercial and Federal websites these days. Common libraries used by CMS include:
- jQuery
- Twitter Bootstrap
- YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)
By placing all of these common code files onto assets.cms.gov, we can use the same code across all of CMS’ websites. assets.cms.gov supports both a global directory of assets used across all websites as well as folders for site-specific code libraries (e.g., www.cms.gov, www.medicare.gov, etc.).
Some of the benefits of this approach include:
- The ability to cache files across all of CMS’ websites, resulting in better website performance
- The ability to release new versions of code libraries across all websites at once
- A common set of code built & tested to Section 508 compliance and cross-browser performance
I’ve mentioned how WNMG is using assets.cms.gov to support development of the public websites, but any CMS web-based project can be built against the assets.cms.gov framework. Using assets.cms.gov for your web project gains you all of the benefits above and also saves you development time by leveraging the work that has already been done.
assets.cms.gov Documentation & Downloads are available online. We are continuing to iterate and grow the amount of documentation online, so please check back frequently.
If you are interested in using assets.cms.gov for a web development project you are working on, please let us know in the comments. We are happy to address any questions you have or to provide additional information. Your feedback will help make this project better!
Please post all comments/feedback on the original HHS post.
What Kind of Website Do You Have?
Numbers are neither good nor bad. It’s context that gives them meaning. For examples, context can be derived over time, like changes or trends, or it can be provided by comparison to a peer, like a benchmark. But a meaningful comparison needs to be apples to apples.
The Digital Strategy requires agencies to collect metrics. We launched the Digital Analytics Program last week to help agencies with metrics guidance, training, a tool and support for that tool. The guidance included a metrics framework (context!), and today we are offering another lens to understand federal websites.
GSA commissioned web analytics industry leader comScore to independently analyze 75 federal agency websites on a range of quantitative and qualitative factors. As part of the report, comScore introduces three federal website “use categories” to segment government sites according to functionality and purpose.
- Interactive sites primarily enable visitors to accomplish a specific task or set of tasks. These sites facilitate the provisioning of government services that would otherwise need to be delivered to the public through different forms of correspondence. Examples of interactive websites include the Social Security Administration website, the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid website and the Office of Personnel Management’s “USA Jobs” recruiting website.
- Directional sites function largely as portals, or directories, to other content. Though they may provide visitors with some unique content, their primary role is to direct visitors to other government domains for more information. Examples of directional websites include GSA’s USA.gov portal, the Library of Congress portal, and the House of Representatives main page.
- Research sites are primarily learning portals, communicating all information related to the agency to visitors, as well as, in some cases, facilitating the dissemination of government data to the public. Research sites include the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website, the Census Bureau homepage, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
There are other models that agencies can apply. The American Consumer Satisfaction Index, for example, publishes studies about customer satisfaction. They classify government websites as news and information websites, portals and department main websites, e-commerce and transactional sites and career/recruitment websites.
Why is this important?
The purpose of a site provides context to measure success. For example, with interactive sites, visits per visitor has an inverse relationship with efficiency. The fewer visits required to accomplish a task, the better. In directional sites, visits per visitor is directly related to effectiveness. If the site takes a visitor where she needs to go every time, she will keep coming back to use it.
GSA commissioned this report to support the President’s Executive Order on “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” that was one of the drivers for the White House’s Digital Government Strategy.
Learn more about GSA’s Digital Analytics Program and view the report.
[Updated Oct 19 with other types of classifications.]
Here’s to Your Health
Editor’s Note: We are featuring the work agencies are doing keeping with the letter and spirit of the Digital Strategy. This is on the value of APIs.
HHS has collected more than 284 datasets at healthdata.gov and the inventory is currently growing by almost 100 per year. Thirty-three of these databases are already API enabled. One of the largest is the HealthCare Finder API, which opens multiple data collections covering public and private health insurance plans.
U.S. News & World Report uses the HHS HealthCare Finder API to create a tool to help consumers find the Best Health Insurance Plans for their specific needs. Their web-based Best Health Insurance Plans rates plans based on coverage and costs (both monthly and out-of-pocket), and makes it easy for users to find plans top-rated plans available to them. “We at U.S. News are thrilled to have access to the HealthCare Finder API and the important health insurance data it makes publicly available,” said Ben Harder, General Manager of Health Rankings at U.S. News. “Using the API, U.S. News has rated thousands of health plans across America, making it easier for individuals and families to compare their options and make better insurance-purchasing decisions.”
Other APIs provide access to information on the quality of provider care, the quality of hospital and nursing home care, a directory of federally qualified health centers, National Library of Medicine and Medline Plus resources, cancer incidence, FDA recalls, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s TOXMAP (Healthdata.gov includes datasets from across the U.S. Government).
Digital Analytics Program Helps Agencies Measure Web Performance
Support for agencies’ implementation of upcoming Digital Government Strategy milestones continues with the rollout of the Digital Analytics Program to help agencies measure performance and customer satisfaction to improve service delivery. This new program helps agencies by providing digital metrics guidance and practices, training and tools and implementation support.
The Digital Government Strategy Milestone 8.2 calls for agencies to implement performance and customer satisfaction measurement tools on all .gov websites. The Digital Services Innovation Center, housed at GSA, is rolling out a comprehensive Digital Analytics Program to help.
Step One was the release of guidance and best practices on Digital Metrics in August. This includes comprehensive info and measures for digital services, as well as outlining the common set of agency measures for web sites.
Step Two begins when the Innovation Center releases a common tool October 15 as a shared service to help federal executive branch agencies comply with the strategy by collecting and reporting on the 10 required performance metrics. The solution uses a page tagging technique to collect metrics, which has become an industry standard. There is no cost to agencies to use the tool.
By using a common web analytics tool across agencies, we’ll be able to deliver an unprecedented, government-wide view of how well agencies serve their customers online. Being able to share this data will also create new possibilities for agencies to collaborate in improving service and learn from each other.
The new solution isn’t intended to replace any of the products agencies are already using. But it can supplement current efforts and can serve as a stand-alone solution for agencies without a metrics tool.
What’s next?
Agency leads for Digital Strategy will be identifying a point-of-contact (POC) for Digital Analytics for their agency. The POC will be the primary person that GSA works with on implementing the common tool and page tags. This will keep the implementation as streamlined as possible.
Want to learn more?
- Listen to the on-demand Digital Metrics webinar on the requirements and guidance and a case study on agency-wide metrics implementation at USDA.
- Sign up for email updates on Digital Analytics Program page on HowTo.gov
- Send your questions to dap@gsa.gov, and we’ll post the answers on HowTo.
- Check out future training from DigitalGov University related to metrics and other topics.
Digital Government Strategy Milestones Report
Yesterday marked three months since the release of the Digital Government Strategy and agencies have been making great strides in meeting the milestones toward building a 21st Century Government. In his blog, Building-blocks of a 21st Century Digital Government, Steve Van Roekel said
Executing on this vision of government cannot happen alone. To provide the highest value of services, we must rethink from step one how government builds and provides services for the American people. We must unlock rich government data, information and services so that everyone from citizen developers and private sector entrepreneurs, to our very own Federal agencies can help provide the American people with the access to these services “anywhere, anytime, on any device.”
This blog was released in conjunction with the milestones deliverables page where you can find:
- /digitalstrategy pages – where agencies will be posting candidate data sets and services that they will mobilize or make available via API
- Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Toolkit – that includes key considerations, best practices, and examples of existing policies from successful BYOD programs launched at forward-leaning agencies.
- Governance Recommendations – guidance for agencies to stand up effective digital services governance structures consistent with Milestone Action #4.2. Read about the Agile “Sprinting” that took place to get there.
- Performance Metrics Guidance & Tools – to enable data-driven decisions on service performance, Milestone Action #8.2. Read Jim Wilson’s Meeting the Metrics Milestone blog about how NASA’s working on this now.
- Report on Mobile Security from National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) summarizes forthcoming publications on managing and securing mobile devices and information on how NIST’s standards and guidelines should be used in the mobile landscape.
What’s your agency doing to meet the milestones? Let us know about the great work you are doing, and remember to check out the Digital Services Innovation Center webpage and HowTo.gov digital strategy milestone page for guidance, resources, and training.
Reposted from Digital Gov Blog.