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The process of searching for and bidding on federal government contracts is complicated, and last year our research revealed that it was an area the public needed help navigating.

In order to understand if certain pages and sections of our website effectively help customers complete their tasks, we run page-level and pop-up surveys that allow people to leave feedback and tell us what was helpful or what wasn’t.

The Contact Center team handles all calls, chats, and emails coming to USAGov from the general public, for help navigating government services and information. We provide a multi-channel shared service platform to serve those who have questions ranging from housing assistance to how to file taxes.

Email is an easy, time-saving way for us to connect the public with government information and services. We strive to provide clear information about relevant topics to our more than 850,000 subscribers, in hopes that our emails will stand out in inboxes overflowing with news alerts and sales offers.

A core component of the USAGov content team’s job is to make sure the public can find what it’s looking for on our site. One of the main ways we do that is by researching to zero in on the keywords people are using when they search for a topic. Then we incorporate those keywords into our page titles and content summaries.

Every quarter, the Analytics team provides a summary of various performance metrics on our different channels. Here are overall trends from the first quarter (Q1) of FY18.

Almost a year ago, we started broadcasting live on Facebook. In that time, we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. As a result, we hosted Facebook Live events that were better scripted, tackled more complex topics, and most importantly, were more engaging to our audience.

This event was originally posted on DigitalGov University on January 9, 2018.

When Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, it caused a total collapse of the traditional communication infrastructure. People on the island turned to radio and social media as a lifeline. Family members on the mainland searched for information they could easily share via text.

Some people experience challenges navigating government services -- especially if they need to work with more than one agency. Based on this premise, we set out to find out how agencies could share information with one another to improve the customer experience.