Tag:
federal websites
Latest Headlines
Latest Headlines
Q&A: Sheila Campbell and Jonathan Rubin on federal website usability testing
Two General Services Administration officials recently sat down with FierceGovernmentIT to discuss their efforts to help agencies improve their digital presence and better serve citizens. Sheila Campbell, director of the center for excellence in digital government, and Jonathan Rubin, First Fridays usability program manager, explained GSA's web usability testing services as well as ways it's institutionalizing lessons learned through blog posts and training.
GAO: IRS needs long-term web strategy
In an effort to improve its website, the Internal Revenue Service launched short projects to deliver interactive tools and longer-term projects to improve foundational infrastructure, but it has no overarching strategy for its website, says the Government Accountability in an April 16 report (.pdf).
GAO recommends usability improvements for saferproducts.gov
The Consumer Product Safety Commission uses a variety of outreach channels to bring visitors to saferproducts.gov , but hasn't done enough to assess who users are and how best to serve them, finds a Government Accountability Office report (.pdf) published March 11.
NTIA may reconsider .us registration policies
The NTIA requires registrants have a connection--a "U.S. nexus"--with America, such as a bona fide presence or residence. Current policy also prohibits private registration, requiring registrant contact info to be listed in the WHOIS database. The .us suffix has gained little online traction, having a market share within the United States smaller than .info, according to data from Webhosting.info.
The top ways federal websites messed up in 2012
A team that tests federal websites for usability says in a Dec. 28 blog post that they found four main problems in 2012. In 2012, the HowTo.gov team conducted 26 tests on federal websites, intranets and other services. Six managed to make improvements within 30 days of the test, the blog post says: Search.usa.gov, FedRAMP, NASA's mobile site, Regulations.gov, OMB Max and SAM.gov.
Despite six-figure salaries, Commerce Dept. specialists tasked with data entry
Highly paid export specialists at the International Trade Administration lose a third of their time to data entry and other administrative work, the Commerce Department office of inspector general says. Its specialists make about $100,000 annually plus benefits, a report (.pdf) dated Nov. 30 says.
Don't measure everything, says DOE web manager
It's possible with today's website analytics tools to gather a wealth of data and monitor every detail of user activity. "You don't need to measure everything. Figure out what measurements really matter to you and put a plan in place to measure them," said Trish Cozart, senior project leader for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's technology deployment tools team, during a Nov. 1 DigitalGov University webinar.
United Kingdom commits to 1 government website
The United Kingdom officially launched a single government website called Gov.uk Oct. 17--rounding out consolidation efforts that had already brought the country's 820 national government websites down to just two domains, Directgov and Business Link, in less than 2 years. The single government portal had been in beta since Jan. 31.
Effort to cut websites misses goal, finds CRS
Federal website reform missed its 1-year deadline, coming up 579 domains short.
VanRoekel: Digital strategy will consolidate federal websites
Not only will the White House's digital strategy put a freeze on all new dot-gov domains, it will consolidate websites, significantly reducing the number of federal websites overall, said Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel.
