You’ve run a challenge and prize competition, selected your winners, and distributed the prizes. If you think you’re done, guess again. There’s much more to challenge and prize competition success than getting a solution that solves your problem or meets the criteria.

You need to measure success right after your challenge as you work to implement the winning solution. But you also need to measure success over time by keeping in touch with your winners and the other contestants. Set aside time on your calendar to follow up by phone or email. Continually measure success and communicate all this information up your chain of command.

Here are just a few measures of success:

• Return on investment. For the prize money, what is the value of what you received?  Based on participation in your challenge, did a winner or contestant expand their business and create jobs?

• Cost effectiveness. Was your challenge less expensive and/or faster than a traditional grant or procurement?

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama launched the Open Government Initiative, an effort to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration in the federal government. The initiative introduced a number of websites and strategies to offer raw government data, including research grant information on data.gov. For energy gurus, data.gov/energy offers downloads of energy-related data such as energy use and consumption in the U.S.

Yet the mere provision of big data is not enough; a key component of making big data accessible is providing context and meaning to that data to enable the public to solve problems, identify patterns, and draw conclusions. This is where private sector innovation enters the equation. Many government agencies have been using data jams, datapaloozas, or hackathons to highlight the datasets available, while bringing together interdisciplinary groups of experts from both the private and public sectors to explore the data and brainstorm new creations.

Data Jams and Datapaloozas

Since 2011, federal agencies including the Department of Energy (DOE) have hosted data jams gathering subject-matter experts, technology experts, incubators and industry to leverage innovative ideas, proofs of concept, and road maps for the implementation of new solutions to national challenges with the help of government datasets. All data jams follow a common structure:

1. Assemble innovators and entrepreneurs from the government, non-profits, educational institutions, and the private sector;
2. Introduce open government datasets and relate them to national challenges;
3. Form small groups to brainstorm products, services, and technological tools that could solve national challenges and be created within 90 days;
4. Have participants vote on the most promising product ideas; and
5. Encourage individual data jam participants to volunteer to create these new products within 90 days.

After—and even during—the events, the attendees will have formed ideas or roadmaps, or may already be on their way to implementing innovative creations.

One of DOE’s most well-known data initiatives, The Green Button Initiative, resulted from an energy data jam focused on: Why don’t consumers have access to their home energy usage data? The idea went public at the 2012 White House Energy Datapalooza and now, with the creation of an app, over 36 million customers are able to securely download their energy consumption data from nearly thirty-five utilities and electricity suppliers.

While many energy-related data jams and hackathons have produced consumption-related apps or technologies, there has been a gap in creating energy education content. Therefore, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory teamed up for the first Energy Education Data Jam to be held on March 27th.

Energy Education Data Jam

With America’s rapidly changing and expanding energy portfolio, energy literacy is a crucial pillar at DOE. To educate Americans about the interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning about energy, DOE collaborated with 13 federal agencies and expert groups to create the Energy Literacy Framework. This framework identifies the interdisciplinary principles and concepts for understanding energy.

The Energy Education Data Jam on March 27th 2014 will gather education experts, usability designers, developers, and energy experts to think about how to create energy education content through the energy literacy lens. The data jam aims to catalyze ideas and creations applicable to learners of any age—from preschool to adult learners. Data jam participants will:

• Share currently available data and tools;
• Create real resources to improve literacy;
• Develop new ways to enhance the delivery of energy literacy materials; and
• Help energy-education-focused organizations to bridge the energy literacy gap.

For example, how could you take a scenario-based tool like BITES and make an education-focused smart-phone app? Could you take the Energy Literacy Framework, a hard copy document and make it interactive? Join the data jam and share your ideas.

Editor’s Note: For more information on DOE’s Data Jam, please see the event website. If you would like to join the data jam, RSVP through the online invitation or send an email to energyliteracy@ee.doe.gov.

The White House launched a hub for consumer-facing tools across the federal government, and they want to feature your agency’s tools that can help make people’s lives easier.

As of now, they are featuring tools from these agencies:

• Department of Education’s College Scorecard
• Department of Energy’s Hybrid Car Calculator & Home Energy Yardstick
• Department of Agriculture’s Local Farmer’s Market Map
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Credit Card Agreement
• Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Litigation Resource Center

Check out the tools and let them know about the tools that should be added.

Ori Hoffer is a Public Affairs Specialist at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

Let’s face it: Some of us work to live. Some live to work. And all of us look forward to pay day.

If you work for the Department of Defense, the Executive Office of the President, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services or the Broadcasting Board of Governors, chances are that you are one of 6.6 million people paid by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS).

That’s A LOT of paychecks.

In 2012, the digital team at DFAS saw a trend. As much as 15% of the traffic to their website was coming from people using smartphones and other devices to do things like check their pay (current and retiree), correct their military records and get advice on debt and bankruptcy. The team, led by website program manager Debra Fioritto, decided to embark on a major redesign to optimize their site for a variety of screen sizes and types.

Fast forward to May 2014 and a newly launched, mobile-friendly www.dfas.mil. Boasting a responsive design, the site helps four main categories of users:

• Manage their MyPay accounts right from the homepage;
• Make online debt payments;
• Submit travel expense claims; and/or
• Find DFAS social media channels and customer service contact information.

The responsive architecture eliminates the need for manually “pinching” or pulling the screen to view all the content. It also benefits DFAS content managers by offering a more streamlined and efficient Web posting process behind the scenes. Not surprisingly, DFAS reports that mobile traffic to dfas.mil has increased to nearly 30% since 2012, and I suspect the redesigned site will attract even more mobile customers.

If time is money, it’s definitely worth at least a few minutes exploring the new www.dfas.mil.

Don’t forget: You can download cool mobile government apps with just a few clicks from our USA.gov Apps Gallery.

Imagine a world where your mobile device delivers ads for goods and services within 100 yards of your location. According to Thinknear, a leader in targeted mobile advertising, that future may soon be a reality.

Here’s what Thinknear found when measuring the accuracy of location data used in mobile advertising:

• 67% of ad inventory comes with latitude and longitude information compared to 10% a few years ago
• 34% of mobile impressions are accurate within 100 meters; 9% are between 100 meters and 1000 meters; and 30% are between 1,000 meters and 10,000 meters
• 20% of mobile location-based ad inventory is outside 10,000 meters—more than six miles off target

Mobile marketers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from accurate location data. As government communicators, our goal is to connect citizens with services and vital information in their communities.

While agencies like the United States Postal Service, National Park Service and Department of Energy are leveraging location in their mobile products, mobile location data provides an opportunity to accomplish this goal through targeted messaging. Some agencies are already utilizing this technology for weather advisories and AMBER alerts providing another way that agencies can be more social with their mobile strategies.

This article is part of this month’s Editorial Theme on Social Media. Check out more articles related to this theme.

maroznc/iStock/Thinkstock

The U.S. government has launched more than 45 challenge and prize competitions so far in Fiscal Year 2014. What trends are we seeing? Well, the trend is…diversity. That might sound like an oxymoron, but federal agencies are really putting themselves out there, asking the crowd to help tackle a wide array of problems.

Until August 3rd, NASA is seeking ways to improve email for astronauts on the International Space Station. The Small Business Administration is looking for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each to fund operating budgets. Citizens can submit their ideas through TopCoder.com, or by filling out a simple Web form.

The diversity trend continues, with the many platforms and websites federal agencies are using to power challenge and prize competitions. HHS‘s Office of the National Health Coordinator is using GSA’s sites.usa.gov tool, built in WordPress, to run their Innovations in Hypertension Challenge. The Department of Energy is using their own website—energy.gov—to accept submissions in their Microgrid MVP Challenge. NASA is using Innocentive.com to power their New Ways to Analyze Climate and Earth Science Data Challenge.

If you need any information about challenge platforms, let us know. There are many options, including contractors on GSA’s Schedule for Challenge and Competition Services (541 4G) and the sites.usa.gov WordPress tool. The Challenge.gov team will also review your planning documents, or talk with you during our weekly office hours. Join our community to get reminders, and meet other people who can give you feedback on your challenge competition.

So don’t delay! Be part of the movement and try crowdsourcing.

This article is part of this month’s Editorial Theme on our DigitalGov Communities. Check out more articles related to this theme.

totallyPic.com/iStock/Thinkstock

Roughly 1 in 9 (11%) websites have adopted responsive Web design, according to research conducted by Guy Podjarny in January. While the number has risen in the last 7 months, I know you’re probably a little underwhelmed by that number. But if you are one of the agencies that have gone through the process of developing a responsive site, you are aware of the challenges that can often get in the way of progress.

Responsive Web design isn’t a silver bullet for your agency’s mobile strategy. But when done right, it can provide users with the fast, easy experience they are seeking. Smashing Magazine suggests a few tricks that can improve your existing responsive solutions and maximize performance for users:

• Deliver each document to all devices with the same URL and the same content, but not necessarily with the same structure.
• When starting from scratch, follow a mobile-first approach.
• Test what happens when resources are loaded and displayed on real devices. Don’t rely on resizing your desktop browser.
• Use optimization tools to measure and improve performance.
• Deliver responsive images via JavaScript until there is a better solution.
• Load only the JavaScript you need for the current device with conditional loading.
• Deliver above-the-fold content first.
• Apply a smart responsive solution with one or more of these techniques: conditional loading, responsiveness according to group, and a server-side layer.

Federal agencies face these challenges along with barriers like buy-in from management. This Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, members of the Mobile Gov Community of Practice from the Department of Energy, the Defense Financing and Accounting Service, and the Department of Health and Human Services will discuss the challenges they faced in their responsive Web implementations and how they overcame them during the webinar, MobileGov Mystery: Getting Buy-in and Other Challenges In Mobile Web Implementations.

Sign up now to hear how other agencies are addressing Responsive Web Design Challenges.

What’s your mobile itch?

A long time ago at a workshop not so far away…we asked the 40 federal government innovators who had released native apps this question. We wanted to know their biggest barriers, challenges, frustrations to building anytime, anywhere government.

Their generosity in telling us those pain points informed 2011’s Making Mobile Gov Project, which identified 10 challenges to implementing mobile apps and responsive websites for public audiences in the federal government. The MobileGov Community of Practice has worked to address these challenges ever since.

While our work is not done, we’ve come a long way and are evolving with the technology.

Take the challenge of creating mobile products for multiple user platforms like mobile Web and various device operating systems (iOS, Android, etc.). Back in 2011, agencies were building either static mobile Web pages or native apps; the responsive Web design approach was in its infancy.

Now instead of the either/or approach, agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are implementing or planning responsive Web design and building native apps. However, the platform challenges have become more sophisticated. While responsive Web design has become popular in the federal government, there are still challenges around mobilizing information like tables and charts.

To counter these new challenges, more agencies are focusing on what we called the “data and infrastructure” challenge three years ago. Instead of thinking about the presentation layer (apps and mobile Web), agencies are looking at the mobilization of their information and at ways they can share mobile code with other agencies. They’re looking at adaptive content approaches and participating in projects like our open and structured data content modeling project.

The rest of this month we’re going to have a series of articles that look at where we are and where we are going with anytime, anywhere government.

These include:

• A recap of recent presentations on the Challenges in Implementing Responsive Design at the Department of Energy and Defense Finance and Accounting Services;
• Some tips on how to display tables and charts on mobile devices by the feds who have been testing mobile websites with the Federal Crowdsource Mobile Testing Program;
• An in-depth look at how Health and Human Services (HHS) mobilized over 3,000 tables on its website (and then shared the code);
• How we’ve updated the Federal Mobile Apps Registry to help agencies promote their mobile products;
• Takeaways from last month’s Open and Structured Content Modeling workshop;
• And a update on what’s happening with anytime, anywhere government when it comes to the Internet of Things.

All of these articles will talk about current itches that need to be addressed. You can also get involved with the group that’s been providing solutions for the last three years by joining the Mobile Gov Community of Practice.

A website redesign is never an easy task, but when responsiveness is one of your redesign’s key goals, special considerations come into play that can present unique challenges. In the September webinar on Responsive Web Design Challenges in Government, we heard from two agencies who identified coordination, leadership buy-in and content decisions when mobilizing their websites.

Marissa Newhall, acting director of the Office of Digital Strategy and Communications at the Department of Energy (DOE), shared the reasons for going responsive with the energy.gov website.

Initially, with the overhaul of DOE.gov in 2010, the Department of Energy’s vision was to:

• Develop on a single open source platform solution
• Consolidate all of the department’s public-facing websites (of which there were many)
• Create a trusted customer-friendly brand for the agency under energy.gov

Not long after the initial launch of energy.gov, a review of the analytics showed three things:

• a distinct decrease in desktop users and corresponding increase in mobile and tablet users,
• overall visits doubled during this time due to a major phase of our content integration/migration, and
• the content users were looking for was based on consumer energy savings, such as how to choose a new hot water heater, or learn about home heating and cooling systems.

Change in Strategy

These analytics sparked a change in strategy. As a result, energy.gov ended up developing an entirely new section of their website called Energy Saver, with content devoted to consumer energy efficiency information and a new tool that allowed users to search for state energy rebates.

With the development of these cool tools, the department wanted consumers to be able to easily access the content from any device, whether they were researching at home or shopping at their local hardware store. Going responsive was the way to focus on their highest-value content on the site, and make it more accessible to the growing numbers of mobile users. Focus groups showed the current content wasn’t usable on mobile devices. With the large increase in visitors, the team focused on user experience to make sure the content was good on both mobile and the desktop.

Main Challenge

Energy’s main challenge was coordination with content stakeholders. Keeping the project on track required regular calls with developers, internal website users and a Web council. Clearly defining high-value areas and sticking to them proved to be a successful approach to the overwhelming number of tasks. When producing content now, they really think about how it looks on mobile with their new, responsive content strategy.

DFAS’s Four Challenges

The second presenter was Debra Fioritto from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), who identified three challenges in her Responsive Web Design implementation.

First Challenge: Make the Case

Debra’s first challenge was to make the case for responsive design to her agency’s leadership, a short two years after previously updating their website. DFAS’s mobile usage rates were increasing while her site’s bounce rate was also increasing, signifying that more people were coming from mobile devices and leaving quickly when they had trouble finding the information they were looking for. These analytics told a clear story of how DFAS could better meet its customer service objectives, and the agency leadership saw clearly that a responsive redesign was needed. The most effective way to make this case was to tell her leadership the story using the same tools that had initially revealed the story to her: her site’s analytics.

Second Challenge: Timeline

Her second challenge was her timeline. The mobile templates were developed relatively quickly, in less than two months, but technical upgrades that were required added several additional months before the new design could be implemented. While Debra initially thought this lag would be problematic, she was able to turn it into a positive by using this time to: visit her different mission areas, explain to them what was changing and how it would better suit users’ needs, and get people excited about the new and improved site. Once the new responsive design was implemented, the site’s analytics improved dramatically. Mobile use continued to increase, and bounce rates sharply decreased for both mobile and desktop users, indicating that users were getting better service across the board.

Third Challenge: Tables & PDFs

Debra’s third challenge is one she continues to work through: the site still has some content that works better on a desktop, such as tables and PDFs. This content is being adapted to be more mobile-friendly, and her team is exploring an Adobe tool that converts PDFs into HTML. Debra has a goal to get her agency to think Mobile First, which will streamline the process by taking mobile display into consideration while the content is being developed.

Technical challenges continued to present themselves after the site launched. A Facebook feed tool on the site was discovered to not be Section 508 compliant and some desktop browsers were not properly displaying the new design. In both cases, the challenges could be remedied by changing the code or creating a workaround. In her parting thoughts, Debra noted that if she could re-do the project, she would incorporate more time for testing. But given that her mobile user base—currently 35% of her Web traffic—is growing month by month, the completed DFAS redesign is undoubtedly creating a better experience for her agency’s customers, making the redesign project a triumph for her agency.

Missed the webinar? You can watch it below.

Ellen Arnold Losey is the Senior Graphic Designer and Webmaster at the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Debra Harris is a Public Affairs Specialist at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

If you’re interested in helping solve government challenges around Responsive Web Design, join the MobileGov Community of Practice and participate in October’s MobileGov Around the Horn Call where we will discuss responsive Web design performance.

It is fall when the weather becomes colder, and people start firing up their furnaces. While I was working on putting in more insulation and installing a programmable thermostat, I wondered if the federal government has an API to help me lower my utility bills. Yes, and it is a great API! The Department of Energy (through the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory) has the Home Energy Saver API which is a comprehensive service to analyze home energy use.

Visit the online Home Energy Saver (HES) application to understand how the service works. A user starts by describing his or her property by listing the address, age of the house, and the number of occupants. The user can also give more details such as the shape of the house, insulation, air leakage, and other structural factors. The user is then given a detailed list of recommendations to improve his or her house. HES then calculates the difference between current energy costs and estimated cost savings if the user implements suggested recommendations such as adding more insulation or installing new windows.

Implementing the API is simple. The developer requests a key to use the API and then can access various API methods through SOAP using PHP, JAVA, or C#.NET. The HES API is well-documented and offers many ways to customize the calculations and reports. The HES website itself uses the API to make calculations and present reports. There are also a number of third-party applications that use the API, which developers can view in the Project Gallery.

HES is a perfect example of using federal data and research to help citizens directly. Thanks to this API, people can save hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on their energy costs while helping the environment by lowering their carbon footprint. The only suggestion I have is to implement JSON for the Home Energy Saver API so that even more great energy-saving and money-saving apps can be built.

*API – Application Programming Interface. How software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out APIs in Government for more information.

Each week in “The API Briefing,” I will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this blog every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email.

Dr. William A. Brantley, PMP, is a Program Analyst, in Forecasting and Methods at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). You can find out more about his work in this space at BillBrantley.com.

Who to call? Where to meet? What to pack?

How to find fuel?

Make sure your personal disaster preparedness plan includes how to quickly find functioning gas stations in your area with help from the Department of Energy’s Lantern Live app.

The app crowdsources the ability to find fuel during an emergency through user-generated status reports of local gas stations. It also allows users to check for power outages in the area, and includes useful tips and guidelines for emergency situations.

Lantern Live uses the power of crowdsourcing and open data in disaster and recovery, and was developed in response to lessons learned from 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. It builds on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative, which is designed to accelerate the development of open data for power outages.

Future versions of the app will also include the ability to crowdsource information on the status of gas stations via standardized hashtags for social media. For future releases, the code will also be open source, allowing developers to reuse the code in their own apps, according to the Energy Department. The goal is to encourage new opportunities for other sectors and applications, further leveraging the power of open data.

The Lantern Live app is currently available for Android devices at the Google Play Store.

You can download this and other cool mobile government apps with just a few clicks from our USA.gov Federal Mobile Apps Directory. Federal agencies can get their apps in the directory by using the The Federal Mobile Products Registry.

scanrail/iStock/Thinkstock

This month we’ll be highlighting articles about crowdsourcing. These are the programs that use a variety of online mechanisms to get ideas, services, solutions, and products by asking a large, diverse crowd to contribute their expertise, talents, and skills.

Among the mechanisms are hackathons, data jams, code-a-thons, prize competitions, workplace surveys, open ideation, micro-tasks or microwork, citizen science, crowdfunding, and more.

A brief look at history outlines a few notable prize competitions, crowdsourcing where solvers are given a task and winners are awarded a prize: The X-Prize and its many iterations from personal space flight to unlocking the secrets of the ocean, Charles Lindburgh’s flight across the Atlantic for the Orteig Prize, and the 300 year-old Longitude Prize, launched by an act of Parliament in Britain to determine a ship’s longitude with the goal of reducing shipwrecks. Today the Longitude Prize is awarding $10 million (UK, British Sterling) for solutions to prevent antibiotic resistance.

Challenge & Prize Competitions

The U.S. government has Challenge.gov—the hub of publicly open competitions to solve technical, scientific, and creative problems. Today, there are more than $2.6 million in prizes available, including a competition to find a technical solution to retrieving and sharing data from bug boxes. The National Science Foundation launched the Beyond the Box challenge after extensive research and coming to the conclusion that they needed an innovation that would surpass what is commercially available.

Since its launch in 2010, federal agencies have run more than 370 competitions and awarded more than $72 million in prizes along with valuable non-cash incentive prizes on the Challenge.gov platform. You can learn more about the program, winners and case studies by watching short, on-demand videos or reading articles in the Challenge categoy of this site.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NASA, Department of Defense, and Energy are the leading agencies for a number of challenges launched. Combined, these agencies comprise more than 65% of all federal challenge competitions. We’ve also seen huge success with EPA’s myraid initiatives (like My Air, My Health), Federal Trade Commission’s Robocall Challenge, and USAID’s efforts for water desalination and an Ebola response.

Citizen Science

Citizen science is the hot new topic in open crowdsourcing efforts. These programs are specific to science problems and often involve micro-tasks, like identifying organisms or changes in environment based on photos. In an example, the U.S. Geological Survey launched iCoast in 2014 to ask citizens to help identify changes to the coast from Super Storm Sandy and they’re received fantastic results to help analyze storm impact and coastal change probability.

Another success story is from National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which developed the Citizen Archivist Dashboard. Contributors tag and document transcription to archival records. More than 170,000 volunteers indexed 132 million names of the 1940 Census in only five months, which NARA could not have done alone.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy is putting forth an effort to create a toolkit for innovation which will involve the Citizen Science and Challenge & Prize Communities of Practice. Some details:

Citizen science and crowdsourcing are powerful tools that can help federal agencies:

• Advance and accelerate scientific research through group discovery and co-creation of knowledge. For instance, engaging the public in data collection can provide information at resolutions that would be difficult for federal agencies to obtain due to time, geographic, or resource constraints.
• Increase science literacy and provide students with skills needed to excel in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Volunteers in citizen science or crowdsourcing projects gain hands-on experience doing real science, and take that learning outside of the classroom setting.
• Improve delivery of government services with significantly lower resource investments.
• Connect citizens to the missions of federal agencies by promoting a spirit of open government and volunteerism.

Internal Ideation

Within government agencies, there are departments that crowdsource solutions from employees. This Ideation Community of Practice is open only to federal staff (.gov, .mil) and provides best practices, resources, and tools to help navigate the processes of asking for ideas, implementing solutions and managing awards and expectations with contributors.

Two of the most successful agency programs are at State Department and Department of Transportation; both have ongoing programs to engage staff. There are also occassional crowdsourcing efforts like GSA’s “Great Ideas Hunt;” launched to solicit innovative ideas. This year the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) developed an open-source technology platform that is used to manage the agency’s internal crowdsourcing efforts. The code is available on GitHub and the on-demand webinar gives an overview of CFPB’s program.

We hope you enjoy the articles and that the work in crowdsourcing inspires you to get involved or launch your own initiative. If you have any questions about this theme or want to contribute a story about your agency crowdsourcing efforts, please contact us via email.

We are in the middle of the holidays, and that means much driving to visit friends and relatives. I was just in Kentucky this past weekend where I spent a total of eight hours driving. I am sure many of you will spend even more time driving in the next three weeks. So, where do you find the best gas prices and how can you maximize your vehicle’s fuel mileage?

Check out the Department of Energy’s FuelEconomy.gov Trip Calculator. Put in your origin and destination, select your vehicle make and model, and you will receive a map of your journey with the best gas prices. If you plan to stay around home for the holidays, you can find local gas prices at FuelEconomy.gov’s state gas prices map.

Developers can also build fuel economy apps using FuelEconomy.gov’s Web services. The Web services offer data based on specific vehicles including emissions data and fuel mileage. Developers can also query for current fuel prices and pair it with the vehicle information to estimate trip costs. There are even Web services to help the developer build an interactive menu for choosing the year, make, and model of the vehicle. Pair FuelEconomy’s Web services with other APIs and developers can create a great holiday trip helper.

*API – Application Programming Interface. How software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out APIs in Government for more information.

Each week in “The API Briefing,” I will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this blog every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email.

Dr. William A. Brantley is the HRIS Branch Chief in the USDA’s Rural Development Human Resources Office. You can find out more about his non-Federal work in this space at BillBrantley.com. All opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.

Jannoon028/iStock/Thinkstock

So you’ve done a couple of usability studies, and a few people are starting to “see the light.” Now you’d like to take it to the next level and help your organization embrace user-centered design (UCD) as the philosophy that drives all your digital projects.

But what is best way to do this? How can you change your organizational culture so the UCD seed you’re planting will take root and flourish?

That’s the boat we found ourselves in five years ago at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. So we embarked on a project to raise awareness of UCD and embed UCD processes into our culture. Of course, as with all experiments, not everything went as planned—but many things did, and we certainly learned a lot in the process. Based on our experience, here are some tips for success when introducing UCD to your organization.

Tip 1: Know your organization

First, decide if your organization is a good fit for institutionalizing UCD. Start by asking yourself:

• How willing is the organization to recognize problems and fix them?
• How open is the organization to embracing change?
• How is funding allocated for Web-related activities?

If you work for an organization with leadership that embraces change and wants to fix problems, you’ll likely be more successful at introducing UCD. In addition, think about how Web funding is allocated—if it is centrally funded and managed, it can be easier to start a long-term and systemic change such as this.

Tip 2: Find a champion (or better yet, several champions)

The champion is basically the face of this effort, so look for a champion who:

• Can help the organization understand the value of UCD.
• Understands the current development process and how UCD could fit in.
• Can identify pockets of resistance and bring them on board.
• Has the authority to direct human and financial resources.
• Can keep the initiative moving over the long term.

Tip 3: Find the right wake-up call

Once you have a champion on board, it’s time to wake up the rest of the organization to the need for UCD. Wake-up calls can take many forms; the ones you choose will depend on your organization. Effective wake-up calls can include:

• Capitalizing on a new product that launches and bombs.
• Sharing case studies from other organizations as they go through a UCD process.
• Having your site reviewed by an external user experience (UX) consultant.
• Using inexpensive click tracking tools to show customer click patterns.
• Conducting a small pilot usability study of your own site.

At DOE, we used a combination of wake-up calls at different times, and for different parts of the organization, which proved to be an effective strategy for us.

Tip 4: Partner with a UX consultant

At some point, consider hiring an external UX consultant—the right consultant will help you move down the UCD road more quickly than you can on your own.

Consultants can help you decide on your strategy, train staff on UX processes, provide templates and examples, and assist with overflow UX work as the demand grows.

Look for UX consultants who:

• Are leaders in their field.
• Are a good cultural fit.
• Enjoy mentoring.
• Are easy to work with.
• Are experienced helping organizations with UCD.

If you don’t have the budget to hire a consultant, look for some free resources. For example:

• Programs like GSA’s DigitalGov User Experience program.
• Free templates and other resources available on sites like usability.gov.
• Training and mentoring available through the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA).

Tip 5: Grow UCD from the top-down AND from the bottom-up

For UCD to really take root and grow, it needs to be embraced by people at all levels of the organization—from the strategic decision-makers to the designers and writers. So information and training at all levels of the organization is key.

Tip 6: Raise awareness first—then introduce the rules

Whenever you are introducing a change, some people will resist it—so start by simply raising people’s awareness of the value of UCD. At DOE, we did this by:

1. Giving talks on what UCD was and why it was valuable.
2. Demonstrating UX tools to spark curiosity.
3. Promoting our pilot project so people could see what we were doing and learning.

Once you have some support for UCD, you can introduce governance processes to help standardize how you practice UCD as an organization.

Tip 7: Put an infrastructure in place

Once you have people excited about UCD, it’s time to build an infrastructure to ensure lasting success. Some things you’ll want to plan for are:

• Ongoing knowledge and skills trainings
• Rules, standards, and processes
• Templates and examples
• Analysis and design tools
• Testing facilities

For some additional information on introducing UCD to your organization, here is a presentation I gave at the 2014 DC User Focus conference— Igniting User-Centered Design Thinking at the Department of Energy.

Wendy Littman is a UX researcher who contracted to DOE’s Office Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for 13 years.

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Conserving energy is not a shot in the dark. Millions of people can now shine a light on their electricity usage as a result of a dynamic public-private partnership based on open data.

The goal of the Green Button Initiative is to provide electricity customers with access to their energy usage data in an easy-to-understand and computer-friendly format. Customers can click on the “Green Button” logo on participating companies’ websites and download their personal energy use information. Data is provided securely and is displayed in a standard way, regardless of energy company. Alternatively, if supported, an authorization can be provided for a third party service to automatically retrieve the customer’s data for analysis and advice.

The Initiative has experienced tremendous growth since its launch in January 2012. Currently, more than 60 million Americans (and 2.5 million Canadians) have access to their own Green Button data from 34 different companies. An additional 13 companies have committed to implementing Green Button.

The Initiative is an industry-led effort. Developers, data specialists, and energy professionals support the project through four active communities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department of Commerce provides leadership and support for the technical standards of Green Button.

“You can only control what you can measure,” said Martin Burns, Ph.D., electronic engineer in NIST’s Smart Grid and Cyber Physical Systems Program Office. “There are lots of reasons why you want to manage the usage of energy. In order to do that, you have to have a measurement of energy. Green Button represents that currency of energy efficiency. It enables an ecosystem of benefits for all kinds of consumers.”

The benefits of Green Button are not limited to homeowners and residential users. Commercial property managers can conduct energy audits remotely and identify usage patterns among tenants. Public policy can be refined through clearer, more accurate data. Utility and energy providers can engage customers and develop efficiency programs. Energy efficiency organizations can engage their stakeholders to leverage Green Button as a concrete tool that increases efficiency.

Sparking Innovation

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The Initiative has ignited innovation in the private sector, which benefits Green Button customers who want to take action based on their data. There are 34 vendors who have created products, services, and apps that use Green Button data.

Green Button innovation has also been promoted by the Department of Energy through their Apps for Energy Challenges. Between April and May 2012, the first competition attracted over 12,000 followers and 56 apps were developed, all based on Green Button data. The app Leafully won first place. Leafully monitors users’ energy usage and sends alerts if there is abnormal activity. Users can also view their energy consumption in terms of trees: They can learn how many trees it takes to offset the carbon produced by their energy use.

The second competition, Apps for Energy II, took place in 2014 and was part of a larger, four-part challenge called the American Energy Data Challenge. The four finalists for the second competition were e-lite Power Use Planner, enACT, PowerHouse—How Clean is Your Shirt?, and WattBuddy.

Growing the Program

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On February 6th, an event celebrating “The Birth of the Green Button Ecosystem” will be held in San Diego, California. Green Button creators, developers, industry partners, utility companies, and stakeholders will come together to learn about current efforts and future directions of the Initiative.

As the Initiative moves forward, one main goal is to ensure that all parts of the Initiative work together. This interoperability is a greater challenge for Green Button than for other projects.

“Interoperability requires many parts,” said Burns. “For a lot of the open data initiatives, government is the single source of information. In that case, publishing the data and describing it is the basis for interoperability. For Green Button data, you have independent private organizations—third parties and data custodians; therefore, interoperability has multiple parties.”

Burns identified three things that are needed for Green Button interoperability. First, Green Button has a data standard, a document that describes the data. Second, a trade organization had created a certification that codifies implementation agreements and provides a single way to interpret the data standard. This ensures everyone understands the data in the same way. The third part of Green Button is open source testing tools. Anyone can create a product based on Green Button data.

“We’ve built up these components—data standards, testing and certification, and open source tools—and they will be unveiled together on February 6th,” Burns said. “We are celebrating this achievement. We have all these pieces, along with 60 million households, and we hope to be able to use this ecosystem to propagate across the country—and maybe across the world—a standard API about this currency of energy efficiency. That creates an opening for third party providers and economies of scale. They don’t have to custom write software or negotiate with every utility on earth.”

Interested participants need to register for the half-day Green Button event.

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Tackling technology tasks just got easier.

Recently, federal agencies negotiated eight new Terms of Service (TOS) Agreements for free apps and services. DigitalGov has an extensive list of federal-friendly TOS agreements for free products, and the list is updated as new TOS agreements are created.

Cyfe

Cyfe, a business dashboard app, helps users monitor diverse data streams in one location. It displays information related to social media, analytics, marketing, sales, support, and infrastructure tools. The app stores data securely, allowing for the sharing of editable or read only dashboards. This TOS agreement was negotiated by the General Services Administration (GSA).

Google Wallet

Google Wallet is a mobile payment system. It works with credit, debit, gift, and loyalty cards. Money can be received or sent to anyone in the U.S. with a Gmail address. Users can pay in stores or online and can also use select ATMs. This TOS agreement was negotiated by the Department of Energy.

IFTTT

IFTTT, or “If This Then That,” is a web-based service centered on the use of conditional statements, or “recipes.” Using a set of criteria from a pool of web apps, users create recipes: when a specific action occurs on one app, that app will trigger another app and cause it to perform a function. Basically, if this happens, then that action will occur. This TOS agreement was negotiated by GSA.

A recent article on DigitalGov explains how agencies can use IFTTT in a variety of ways and encourages agencies to submit their own ideas or examples.

Mandrill

Mandrill is an email infrastructure service with a mobile app that allows users to monitor delivery and troubleshoot globally. It offers various template options, custom tagging, and tracking and reports. Users can send automated one-to-one email and newsletters. This TOS agreement was negotiated by GSA.

POP

The Prototyping on Paper app, POP, combines the paper and digital worlds with one tool. By uploading photo sketches into the app, users can share ideas with colleagues, create prototypes, and conduct user testing. It also has a web interface that supports Dropbox and Adobe Creative Cloud, for making high fidelity prototypes. This TOS agreement was negotiated by the Federal Reserve Board.

Slack

The team communication platform, Slack, is a collaborative working area. The tool has an array of features – one-on-one messaging, private groups, persistent chat rooms, direct messaging – and is available as both an app and web platform. Users are able to search all of the content in a team’s Slack through one search box. This TOS agreement was negotiated by the Department of State.

StackExchange

StackExchange is a network of question and answer websites. Created for the programming community, it covers a variety of topics, including: Open Data, User Experience, and Programming. The sites are self-moderated, subjecting users to a reputation award process. This TOS agreement was negotiated by GSA.

DigitalGov’s article on the Open Data Stack Exchange highlighted how agencies and the public can interact on the platform.

Trello

Trello is a web-based project management application. Projects are displayed as boards, which subsequently contain task lists and corresponding task cards. Cards can be part of multiple lists, representing movement of an idea from thought to tangible creation. This TOS agreement was negotiated by GSA.

Agencies interested in the TOS negotiation process should start with the article What Is a “Terms of Service” and How Do I Get One?

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Practice makes perfect. But in the mobile world, it’s testing that makes products better.

For federal agencies that have developed their own apps or mobile-friendly sites, the CrowdSource Mobile Testing Program offers a simple way to collect feedback on compatibility testing.

Since the program’s inception in March 2013, eight federal mobile websites (including responsive design) have been tested by 65 federal employees from 41 agencies. The benefits are twofold: agencies receive actionable feedback about their mobile websites, and testers gain valuable knowledge about mobile websites that they can share with their own agencies.

During each test cycle, testers log issues specific to the application or site being tested. Four themes have emerged from the logs, with lessons that are relevant to anyone developing mobile websites.

Shrinking the Screen Is Not Enough

Moving from a “desktop” presentation to responsive design isn’t always as simple as making the page smaller or changing the screen size.

• Smaller mobile screens often mean smaller fonts and buttons that become hard to read and press.
• Page content must be pared down to allow users to easily find what they are looking for. This can also have a positive impact on desktop user experience. Marissa Newhall, acting director of the Office of Digital Strategy and Communications at the Department of Energy (DOE), said optimizing Energy.gov’s content for mobile helped simplify the functionality of the desktop version. Newhall spoke about Energy.gov’s responsive implementation during DigitalGov’s webinar, Responsive Web Design Challenges.
• Displaying data becomes problematic: on smaller screens, users cannot always tell where they are in the data. Our testing group came up with 8 Ways To Format Tables for Responsive Web Design, providing potential solutions to this issue.

Inspector Gadget Sometimes Has Malfunctions  

Some “gadgets” that enhance websites are not fully functional on mobile devices.

• Photo carousels present challenges that may result in poor user experience. On some devices, users are unable to scroll. On other devices, scrolling is changed from horizontal to vertical.
• Debra Fioritto of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service pointed to PDFs as a content challenge during the DFAS responsive design implementation. Fioritto is working to make ‘mobile-first’ the standard for content development in her office.
• Flash video has no functionality on iOS.

Mobile Comes in Many Sizes and Views

There are over 300 unique mobile screen resolutions that can display in both portrait and landscape.

• The view or page layout and design that you see on the smaller smartphone screen may be totally different when viewed on a tablet.
• Different screen resolutions need to be tested on different devices.

WiFi Can Disrupt Functionality

Mobile devices may behave differently as they switch between WiFi and cellular data networks.

• Responsive applications download all images and content to a device, but they only use certain parts that are critical for proper display. A busy page may be slow to load due to graphics that are not shown on the mobile page.
• Many devices are set to automatically connect to WiFi. When a user connects to WiFi that requires a log on, the application may not display properly until the user manually logs in.

Do you want to help us create more mobile lessons learned? Join in and sign up to help us virtually test BusinessUSA.gov at your leisure next week.

You can also submit your mobile Web application for a future test cycle. The CrowdSource Mobile Testing Program page provides information on how you can use this free service to test your products and is sponsored by the MobileGov Community of Practice.

The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency® (DSIRE®) provides information on incentives and policies for renewables and energy efficiency in the U.S. This joint project by the Department of Energy and North Carolina State University just released an API to query DSIRE®’s database.

Developers can view the sample output by visiting the database query page. They can query by state or ZIP code to receive a listing of programs. After they select a program, the next page lists contact information, a summary of the incentive program, and the eligible energy technologies (see this example). The API returns the same information—for all the programs—in XML, JSON, and CSV formats. Developers should be prepared to receive a large data file, as the API does not allow querying the DSIRE® database using the XML or JSON formats.

The DSIRE® database can be queried using SPARQL. SPARQL (SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) is a language that can query online databases that either offer “key-value” data or relational database tables. To use SPARQL, a query is entered into the SPARQL endpoint. The data is returned in an XML type format—Resource Description Framework (RDF)—which can then be used in an app.

DSIRE® is a great example of joint projects between the federal government and other organizations. By pairing with NC State, DOE has a partner that will manage and offer the data in an effective way to the public. I look forward to further work on the DSIRE® API so that queries are available for JSON and XML formats along with the ability to offer geolocation services.

*API – Application Programming Interface; how software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out APIs in Government for more information.

Each week, “The API Briefing” will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this column every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email. All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.

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Back in November 2014, I wrote about the Federal Reserve of St. Louis’ FRED® (Federal Reserve Economic Data) API. A user can access 238,000 economic trends through FRED® through a website and mobile apps. What is unique about FRED® is that a user can pull economic data directly into an Excel spreadsheet.

Now, the FRED® Excel plugin is joined by the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Excel plugin. The tool, which launched on March 18, incorporates both energy data from the EIA API and economic data from FRED®. A user can then utilize Excel’s charting and analytic capabilities to present the data in charts and analyze connections between energy trends and economic trends. The data is easily updated by just clicking the “Get Data” button.

The EIA Excel plugin gives the user the following categories of energy data:

• Electricity
• State Energy Data System (SEDS)
• Petroleum
• Natural Gas
• Coal
• Short-Term Energy Outlook
• Annual Energy Outlook
• Crude Oil Imports

What I especially like about these plugins is that other applications can read Excel spreadsheets. Excel spreadsheets can be imported into Google Docs for easy sharing or into R for more sophisticated data analysis. Excel spreadsheets can be exported to any number of databases that support APIs. I hope that we can see more agencies with rich data sources build Excel or similar plugins.

(Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, and R are used for illustrative purposes and does not imply an endorsement by the federal government)

*API – Application Programming Interface; how software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out APIs in Government for more information.

Each week, “The API Briefing” will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this column every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email. All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.

I recently found an app that provides a great service through crowdsourcing. Be My Eyes connects visually-impaired people with volunteers. Using the smartphone’s camera, the volunteers can perform tasks such as reading an expiration date or helping someone navigate unfamiliar surroundings. This is not a federal app, but I wanted to highlight it to demonstrate how crowdsourcing apps can make it easy for everyone to make a difference through microtasks.

Crowdsourcing is the use of an online platform to have a large number of people complete small tasks (“microtasks”) to accomplish a larger project. President Obama encouraged the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science in his Second Open Government National Action Plan [PDF]. This is to “harness the ingenuity of the public by accelerating and scaling the use of open innovation methods . . . [t]o help address a wide range of scientific and societal problems.” The Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science is currently developing an Open Innovation Toolkit to support federal crowdsourcing efforts.

As reported by DigitalGov back in December 2014, six agencies are using crowdsourcing in their mobile apps and this spring the U.S. Geological Survey released the iPlover app to make seven. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has mobile apps that allow users to report whale sightings, post GPS tagged photos of Mako sharks, and collect local magnetic field data. For emergency situations, there is a Department of Energy app for reporting fuel sources and a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) app to let first responders share a common situation map. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been using crowdsourcing to provide transcripts for historical videos.

In past columns, I have written about how federal agencies use APIs to supply federal data to apps. This is a vital service, but I also want to encourage agencies to think of ways that they could use crowdsourcing platforms to help citizens provide services to other citizens. Citizens can trust federal agencies to provide safe and reliable crowdsourcing platforms along with valid federal data sources. Citizen volunteers can feel a sense of civic pride while donating just a few minutes of their time to easy but vitally-needed microtasks. Everyone benefits as crowdsourcing becomes another way of delivering public services.

(The mention of “Be My Eyes” does not imply an endorsement of the app or the organization by the General Services Administration, any other government agencies, or the federal government as a whole.)

*API – Application Programming Interface; how software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out APIs in Government for more information.

Each week, “The API Briefing” will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this column every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email. All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.