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Writing for the web is easy. Writing for users is not.
on October 26, 2016
Government websites are written for an extraordinarily diverse group of users. They come to our websites with different knowledge, backgrounds, and abilities. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to make sure the content we care about reaches the audience we want (and is useful to them).
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A sestina on sunsetting content
on May 23, 2016
Sunsetting can be contentious in government. We manage websites for the public, which feels like managing content for everyone’s needs. When you have to think about everyone, that makes it a lot more complicated to delete things.
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Get your pass for Kids to Parks Day
on May 20, 2016
May 21 is Kids to Park Day— a day organized by the National Park Trust to promote nature, learning, and play. And if you’re lucky to have a fourth grader in your family, you can use the Every Kid in a Park program to access all federal lands and waters for free.
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Lean on me: Asking for help on the content team
on April 25, 2016
Our content squad is made of folks with a wide range of backgrounds and skills — we put this to good use by regularly asking each other for help with projects. Here’s a look into some of our recent collaboration.
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Looking at the different ways to test content
on April 19, 2016
We know good content when we see it, and we’re frustrated when we don’t. Keeping this in mind, are there ways that writers can quantify and measure their writing? We’ve looked at different tests you can run depending on the age of your audience.
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Plain language for the win: betaFEC’s new content design
on December 17, 2015
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has been working since the 1970s to clarify the rules for raising and spending money in federal elections, and today we’re thrilled to announce the first major content launch of betaFEC: a guide to registration and reporting that makes intricate information easier to understand.
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Welcome to betaFEC: campaign finance for everyone
on October 29, 2015
As the 2016 presidential election heats up, here at 18F we’ve been working with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to make campaign finance data more accessible to the public. Today, we launched betaFEC, the first piece in a complete redesign of the FEC’s online presence. We were excited to work on a project that allowed us to delve into intricate campaign finance data, plain language, and the FEC’s first API.
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Every Kid in a Park: Why we can’t stop smiling
on October 21, 2015
Our projects are iterative, which means we keep working on them after they launch. In keeping with that practice, we’ve kept a close eye on everykidinapark.gov, which went live September 1. We’re excited to share a few of our improvements and updates with you today.
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What's in a name: Understanding and using government acronyms
on October 14, 2015
We have an acronyms section in our Content Guide, a resource we heartily recommend. Acronyms and abbreviations also have a ton of associated history and nuance, which we’re shedding light on here, hopefully to encourage other authors and agencies to think carefully about how they use them in digital tools.
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How to design a government site for kids
on September 3, 2015
Every Kid in a Park gives U.S. fourth graders free access to all federal lands and water for a full year. Here at 18F, we were proud to develop the site in partnership with the U.S. Department of Interior and other federal land management agencies.
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Making websites more like M&Ms
on August 26, 2015
Web standards and accessibility expert Aaron Gustafson recently came to 18F to speak about progressive enhancement and to challenge designers to improve user experience across browsers and devices.
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Imagining a water cooler for the digital age
on June 24, 2015
Last week, information architect Thomas Vander Wal came to 18F to lead a discussion on his research into social and internal collaboration in the workspace.
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What Estonia can teach us about the future of government records
on June 17, 2015
At 18F, we were thrilled to meet for a discussion on digital services, cyber security, and IT funding with Estonia's most prominent technologists.
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Building a better welcome wagon
on June 15, 2015
As our team expands to meet federal digital needs, we've learned to appreciate documentation for its ability to turn new hires into self-sufficient contributors quickly, with minimal disruption to the organization.
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Dan Brown: The art of conflict in design process
on May 27, 2015
On Friday, author and designer Dan Brown gave a talk at 18F. “Stop fighting, start designing,” centered around the design process and inherent conflict therein.
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