Page 10 - FCW, March/April 2018

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GSA takes lead on making federal websites mobile-friendly
In January, President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Connected Government Act, which requires agencies to ensure that new citizen-facing websites are mobile-friendly. The statute codi es existing governmentwide guidance and includes a schedule to push agencies to adopt mobile- friendly design practices.
Data has shown that more than 40 percent of traf c to federal websites comes from mobile users. Jacob Parcell, director of the Technology Transformation Service’s Mobile Program Management Of ce, said that proportion has been steady for some time, and it’s essential to make sure that mobile and desktop experiences are comparable.
By early July, new government websites must be designed with mobile users in mind, meaning they load quickly, offer mobile-optimized navigation and supply the same basic services as a desktop-friendly site.
Parcell is leading the General Services Administration team charged with making agency web development comply with the Connected Government Act’s mobile- friendly requirements.
For the past seven years, Parcell has been nurturing a mobile community of practice inside the federal government that has reached 1,100 feds who have developed or are developing mobile apps. He has also recruited a volunteer group of more than 250 people who test mobile sites in development across a range of devices and operating systems to troubleshoot potential problems and design bugs.
He and his group are talking to agencies to address any questions they have about the Connected Government Act and the standards that will be put in place to determine whether a site quali es as mobile friendly. Agencies are not required to update legacy sites to conform to the law unless they decide to redesign the sites.
Parcell said more guidance will likely be issued in March. He expects to take existing mobile guidance “and hone it and make it more speci c to the requirements of the law,” including some detail on what constitutes a redesign versus an iterative update.
The law is also an opportunity to examine what mobile users want from a website. Parcell said the best practice is “to really look at analytics and look at what mobile users are coming to the website for and design mobile versions of the website that actually meet those needs.”
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March/April 2018
FCW.COM
— Adam Mazmanian