Page 42 - FCW, July/August 2018

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
S-38 | SPONSORED CONTENT
Agencies modernize — and analyze — to improve their ngagement with the public
eA
T ANY GIVEN HOUR on any day of the week, hundreds of thousands of people are viewing government websites. In the federal sector alone, that is more than 4,500 sites. Citizens
for example, DAP showed that most visitors were checking on the status of their tax refunds. The second most popular activity was enrolling in the Transportation Security Administration’s expedited security screening program. On the morning of April 10, tax refunds had slipped to second, with the most views going to a Justice Department site for U.S. attorneys. Defense Department sites also saw a bump that morning, as did a U.S. Postal Service site for looking up ZIP Codes. The National Weather Service was popular throughout the day.
Those kinds of data analytics can help agencies promote citizen engagement. Ensuring that
the public has a seamless experience obtaining information from and doing business with the government requires a web architecture that is intuitive, mobile-friendly and accessible to people with disabilities. It means understanding data and knowing what to release to the public. It requires managing access and ensuring the privacy and
expect to be able to access any information they need at any time — whether that means looking up tax information, downloading benefits forms or planning a vacation at a national park.
Citizens’ demand for information is apparent in the government’s tracking of its websites. Those sites were visited 3 billion times in the first quarter of this year, according to the federal government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP). Page views across all federal sites typically hit a midday peak of about 2.6 million views, but even at the slowest time — 4 a.m. — federal websites average about 400,000 views.
The site with the most views fluctuates based on a variety of factors. On the evening of April 9,
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