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USA.gov’s Analytics Success: using analytics data to inform design and responsivity to create a better experience for the user

A fortuitous twist of fate led a Global Communications major with a focus in Public Diplomacy to become the acting program manager for the Digital Analytics Program (DAP). Tim Lowden, learned early on that “life can’t be scripted and that nothing’s ever going to follow the exact path you set.”

As part of USAGov’s efforts to assess and improve Kids.gov, we reviewed a variety of metrics to get a clearer understanding of how visitors have been using the site. This data--in combination with the qualitative research--is helping to guide our recommendations for the website.

What do the people want? A simple question with no simple answer.

At USAGov, we’re taking a close look at Kids.gov -- a long-standing site focused on providing information and resources to parents, teachers, and kids. Our cross-functional team has joined forces to “reenvision” the site’s content and presentation to be sure that we’re doing our best to meet the needs of our current audience.

At USAGov we always put our customers first. In the wake of our rebranding efforts, our desire to create a positive user experience across the organization has pushed us to turn a scrutinous eye toward Kids.gov -- a site focused on providing information and resources to parents, teachers, and kids. In a cross-organizational effort, individuals from the marketing, user experience, and performance measurement teams have joined forces to “reenvision” the site’s content and presentation to better suit the public’s needs.

Yesterday, we shared our Snapchat account with the public. After weeks of testing the tool to iron out kinks and determine how we’d make content accessible, we were excited to go public when the official government-friendly terms of service were signed.

They ranked among our top three most popular emails in 2015.

Visitors to USA.gov searched for over 10,000 different words or phrases in 2015. Many of these terms are different, but have similar meanings—like jobs and careers. We grouped these terms into categories and sub-categories in order to get a larger view of what people want from the government. The most popular search topics this year were related to: