gsa / digitalgov.gov

Digital.gov: Better websites. Better government.

We help people in government build better digital services

https://digital.gov

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Want to learn more about how we work? Check out our Wiki page »

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Repositories

As a product, digital.gov maintains a collection of repositories. All of our work is open source and we encourage you to take a look at and contribute to our projects by submitting a Pull Request, a Github Issue, or commenting on existing Issues and Pull Requests.

The repositories below are all used to maintain digital.gov:

Platform

Project	Description
GSA/digitalgov.gov	(This repo) Site platform currently deployed as a static site built with Hugo and hosted by cloud.pages.gov.
18F/dns	DNS configuration for digital.gov domains managed by GSA TTS.
uswds/uswds	This site is developed using the U.S. Web Design System v2, managed by GSA TTS.

Tools - projects we have created in order to better aid our work on the digital.gov platform.

Project	Description
GSA/digital.gov-design	A collection of design assets used for the digital.gov platform.
GSA/digitalgov-workflow (archived)	A tool for managing the digital.gov editorial workflow on GitHub.
GSA/redir (archived)	A basic Jekyll template to use for temporary redirects.

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Development Guide

Technologies you should be familiarize yourself with

• Hugo - The primary site engine that builds digital.gov code and content.
• Front Matter - The top of each page/post includes keywords within --- tags. This is meta data that helps Hugo build the site, but you can also use it to pass custom variables.
• U.S. Web Design System v3.0 - the design system used in digital.gov.
• Gulp - the asset pipeline.

Installation

Prerequisites

Install Gulp globally from your terminal command line:

npm install gulp-cli -g

To use Gulp, you must have Node and NPM installed. We're currently using Node v18. A recommended way of changing your Node version is to use a node version manager tool like n to quickly change between node versions.

NPM is package along with Node. Check your versions of these in your terminal command line by typing:

node -v
npm -v

Using Homebrew is a quick and easy way to install Hugo. Install Homebrew before getting started.

Install Hugo 0.92.0

Read the HUGO quickstart guide »

For OSX: brew install hugo see https://gohugo.io/getting-started/installing/ for other OSs

Quickly check your Hugo version at your terminal command line by running:

hugo version

Note: Digital.gov currently uses Hugo version 0.92.0. This is noted in our .hugo-version file. If Hugo has released a new version, but digital.gov hasn't been upgraded to that version, you may get errors when building locally. It is possible to use Homebrew to download a previous version of Hugo. To do that follow these instructions: Using Legacy Versions of the Hugo Static Site Generator

Setup

Once the prerequisites are installed, clone the repository to your local machine. Then navigate to the project folder in your terminal and run:

npm install

This will install all of the Node dependencies needed to run your Hugo environment. This may take a little while!

Local Development

Running the local development server is as simple as running:

npm start

NPM will run the following scripts:

• gulp env — sets the environment variable to development (local builds only, not in Federalist)
• gulp — builds and compresses all of the SCSS and JS files, and copies jquery and uswds js from node_modules and puts them in the /dist/ folder.
• gulp watch — starts a watch task to look for changes in the SCSS and JS files
• hugo serve — builds all of the pages in hugo and creates a local server at http://localhost:1313/

When Hugo is done building, you should see a success message like:

Web Server is available at //localhost:1313/ (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Press Ctrl+C to stop

You may then view your local site in the browser at http://localhost:1313/.

Local development is powered by Gulp tasks to allow rapid development through:

• A local development server at http://localhost:1313/.
• Automatic CSS & JS updates without reloading the page
• Automatic page reloads when content is changed

Configuration

Environment Variables

This project uses environment variables to handle uploading of images to AWS (powered by Gulp scripts).

In your command line terminal run cp env.example .env to create a template .env file in the root directory of the project.

Replace “[your key goes here]” in the .env file with your AWS key.

Asset Pipeline

NOTE: This is now included in the npm start command above

All style and image build tasks are handled by Gulp and are located in gulpfile.js. All parts of the build are configurable in discrete files (located in config/gulp) to make management easy.

Starting the gulp watch tasks to compile styles. This can be done in the terminal command line by running:

gulp

You would want to have the Hugo build running along with a gulp session in separate terminal sessions in order to compile and watch both content and style changes.

Tip: Use the keyboard shortcut control + c to stop the gulp watch process.

Images

Images found in content/images/inbox/ will be optimized and compressed and sent to an AWS S3 bucket for usage in your layouts and content. This is done by running the gulp img command. See the digital.gov wiki for how to process images.

Other helpful HUGO commands:

• hugo build — builds all the pages in the site, without creating a server
• hugo serve — builds all of the pages in hugo and creates a local server at http://localhost:1313/
• hugo serve --templateMetricsHints — for seeing where you can apply caching in templates and speed up the build time See more in the Hugo docs »

Upgrading Hugo

1. Read through the recent releases
2. Run brew upgrade hugo to upgrade your local copy (docs).
3. Set the version in the .hugo-version file. This is only used for telling Federalist which version of Hugo they should checkout and use.
4. Update this README.md to show the current hugo version
5. Update the version in `.circleci/config.yml to ensure that the same version of Hugo is being used for CI.

Accessibility tests

We follow the WCAG2AA standard, and one of the ways we check that we're following the right rules is through automated tools, like pa11y. For more info on the rules being tested checkout the pa11y wiki.

Running tests

Warning Site must be running locally to perform the scan.

To run a web accessibility test on digital.gov do the following:

1. Check out the site from GitHub https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/
2. Install and run the site locally following the Install and Run instructions above.
3. In a separate terminal window, run npm run test:pa11y to initiate the accessibility checker.

Accessibility testing configuration is located in the .pa11yci file.

Linters

To test the validity of API JSON files, run npm run lint:json in the terminal on your local machine. This will check the validity of the Hugo generated JSON files used for the API. Currently, it validates authors, images, and topics using the tool jsonlint. If an issue is found with the JSON, jsonlint will return a non-zero exit code causing CircleCI to fail. See the wiki API page for fixing API issues.

Markdown testing can be performed by running npm run lint:markdown. The rules that are used for the linter can be found in .markdown-lint.yml.

HTML linting can be performed by running 'npm run test:htmlproofer'. To have HTMLproofer ignore certain content see: https://github.com/gjtorikian/html-proofer#ignoring-content

Common Regex scripts

convert legacy-img to standard img

{{< legacy-img src="/\d+/\d+/\d{2,4}[-x]+\d{2,4}[_-]*(.+?)\.[pngje]+"(
alt=".+?")* >}}

{{< img src="$1"$2 >}}

convert CDN links

{{< legacy-img src="/(\d{4,4}) {{< legacy-img src="$1

replace url with slug in posts

^url: .+/([^/]+)\.md
slug: $1

digitalgov.gov's Issues

Demo QA - Universal

Footer
Huge gap = Missing Twitter feed (widget broke in WP)

DG’s Social icons (header & footer)
RSS
current: https://www.digitalgov.gov/feed/
change to: ?

YouTube
current: http://www.youtube.com/user/howtogov
change to: http://www.youtube.com/c/DigitalGov

Pages nav:
Each main menu page name is missing colored highlight/visual cue for Compliance

Keyboard Tabbing
Both nav menus: on the drop down items, the bottom side of dashed outline is missing/not visible (all except last one)

Recent Posts lists don't match
Live (9 to match homepage):
3 Ways to Manage Research Projects Remotely
Machine Learning Paired with Skilled Data Scientists is the Future of Data-Driven Decision Making
Finding Usability Testers: Tips from an Army Recruiter
The Data Briefing: How to Build a Chatbot in a Weekend
Slack AMA Connects Standards Team with Public
Managing Custom Software Development in Government When You’re Not a Software Engineer
A Conversation With ITIF About the State of Federal Government Websites
The Data Briefing: Will Artificial Intelligence Tools Replace or Augment Federal Employees?
Design and Conflict: Do You Know Your Conflict Style?

Demo (10):
3 Ways to Manage Research Projects Remotely
Machine Learning Paired with Skilled Data Scientists is the Future of Data-Driven Decision Making
Finding Usability Testers: Tips from an Army Recruiter
The Data Briefing: How to Build a Chatbot in a Weekend
Slack AMA Connect Standards Team with Public
Managing Custom Software Development in Government When You’re Not a Software Engineer
the 'A Conversation With ITIF...' post is missing
The Data Briefing: Will Artificial Intelligence Tools Replace or Augment Federal Employees?
Design and Conflict: Do You Know Your Conflict Style?
The Data Briefing: How Blockchain’s Future Growth Will Affect Federal Agencies
USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov Measure Content Efficiency With New KPI Metric ( would be removed )

New Event: An Around the World Recap: PLAIN Monthly Meeting

---
slug: an-around-world-recap-plain-monthly-meeting
title: 'An Around the World Recap PLAIN Monthly Meeting'
summary: 'In this online event, PLAIN co-chairs will provide a recap of international plain language initiatives discussed at the 2017 Plain Language Association International conference in Graz, Austria'
featured_image:
  uid: tile-3
  alt: 'decorative image'
event_type: online
date: 2017-10-11 14:00:00 -0400
end_date: 2017-10-11 15:00:00 -0400
event_organizer: DigitalGov University
host: PLAIN
registration_url: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-around-the-world-recap-plain-monthly-meeting-registration-38539458558
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKyVeipMss
---

In this month's meeting, the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) co-chairs will provide a recap of international plain language initiatives discussed at the 2017 Plain Language Association International conference in Graz, Austria.

The second Wednesday of every month, PLAIN hosts a monthly meeting from 2-3 p.m. Hosted by Digital Gov, the meetings are recorded and posted to Digital Gov's YouTube channel.

In addition to addressing timely topics, like science communications and health literacy, typical discussions include: plain language training; hands-on editing exercises; how to write for web and social media; and content strategy.

DNS change for digitalgov.gov

We are ready to switch our root DigitalGov.gov from WordPress to Federalist, or from GSA hosted DNS to Route53 hosted DNS.

There are currently a number of sub-domains tied to the digitalgov.gov record that will also need to move over to Route53 with this change

• usdigitalregistry.digitalgov.gov
• dap.digitalgov.gov
• search.digitalgov.gov
• summit.digitalgov.gov
• openopps.digitalgov.gov (currently on Route53)

We can do this with no downtime.
We just need to replicate the existing set of DNS records for all the subdomains in Route53.

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Update:

We are going to ask GSA IT to point the www sub-domain of digitalgov.gov at CloudFront for now — thus, not having to move all the sub-domains that are currently associated with digitalgov.gov at this time.

This also means that we’ll be relying on the apache config that SITES program currently has in place to redirect the root digitalgov.gov to www.digitalgov.gov. If/when that goes away after Jan 31, we’ll need to figure out another solution.

For the product, this is an acceptable solution since we’ll be moving DigitalGov.gov over to the digital.gov domain in the next 3-5 months.

Next steps :

• File a ticket with GSA IT to get a full readout/export of the current zone for digitalgov.gov
• Share the full readout/export of the current zone for digitalgov.gov in this ticket
• Create the DNS records in the digitalgov.gov.tr terraform file
• Ask GSA IT to switch the CNAME for the www sub-domain

Update top banner on Demo to reflect the new site destination

The Demo banner currently says it links to a Sites page, but that text should change to reflect the new destination (Federalist).

todo

• Update text to read This is the prerelease preview of DigitalGov. Visit the live site [link]?

Demo QA - Homepage

Homepage
https://demo.digitalgov.gov/index.html

Keyboard tabbing
ok until I hit articles; no dashed outline around featured images; is on 'read more' button and title

There used to be dashed outline around the Search button at top right, but, I see is missing on live and demo sites

Events
tab order goes thru each event ok, then to View All Events, which is above the events; it should be below.

Has 3 events for this month; live only has 2 -- should Janelle/CC add to live site so ppl can register?

Programs & Services
no dashed outline around featured images; is on 'read more' button and title

If still using this layout come February '18, the Sites block will have to be replaced with something else

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Also, we removed Subscribe info & box from above footer last year because of HubSpot's send limit.. return?

Remove Sites/CMS from Services nav and page

https://www.digitalgov.gov/services/

Perform an accessibility audit

Do we know where we have accessibility problems? I know there are resources within 18F and elsewhere to perform an accessibility audit — and this would probably be a good way to understand our current state and how to measure our progress.

I think we all agree that accessibility concerns are both important to our readers. Additionally, they're important drivers for other design, code, and user experience improvement. Let's make it a priority and take the first step.

todo

• Learn who performs accessibility audits in 18F
• Request an audit
• Get audit results

create these issues as follow-up

• Create a scorecard by which we can measure our progress / Publish audit results
• Collect a list of methods for self-audit
• Collect list of methods to do some accessibility audits programmatically (like via Circle CI)
• Follow up with accessibility guild about publishing on digitalgov

Long pages are difficult to navigate

Pages with lots of entries, like community pages and resource pages, can be difficult to navigate. Long pages are OK for long-form reading, but when you need to scan information, or find a specific piece of information on a page, long pages benefit from making it easier to understand the content at a glance.

This can be done with information architecture, navigation, typography, or other layout tricks, but at the end of the day, the goal is to convey a page's contents as quickly and clearly as possible. Right now, we have too many pages that require some real effort to parse.

todo

• Identify a few specific pages that need improvement
• Perform a qualitative analysis of these pages
• Link to internal/external research on in-page navigation
• Suggest solutions to improve them
• Bring to the team for discussion

Create three separate videos from cloud.gov workshop

Three videos (from: https://youtu.be/bXppIJ1K3GM)

1. the case for cloud.gov
2. getting set up and
3. the hands-on labs

• edit videos in iMovie (plus trim out the bit where folks were catching up)
• title cards for all three videos @thisisdano to create
• captions for videos
• tags and descriptions for each video for YouTube (Peter Burkholder to provide)

Add pagination to Tags and Category Pages

Example:
https://www.digitalgov.gov/categories/managing-digital/

There are a lot of posts here. @ToniBonittoGSA suggested that we break them up into 10 or 20 posts per page.

DoD/military and HubSpot email issues

Msg from Lisa re: Open Opps users in military/Defense having difficulty reading newsletters sent via HubSpot. Images and links blocked/stripped down.

Text version that HS also sends looks worse. One user asked if she could send an attached Word doc -- but HubSpot is Marketing/CRM Software, not an email client like Outlook or Gmail.

Solution(s)?

HubSpot Academy

"How do I generate a plain text email?"
https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/how-do-i-generate-a-plain-text-email

"Can I send only the plain text version of my email?"
https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/can-i-send-only-the-plain-text-version-of-my-email

Gather baseline measurements about DigitalGov.gov on WordPress

We are moving digitalgov.gov from a database-driven, memcached version of WordPress to static-file version of our site that is built and supported by Hugo, Federalist and Cloud.gov.

Over the last few months, we’ve done our best to replicate the site as is. Why?

1. Because we don't have easy access to our code
2. Because we prefer to solve one problem at a time.

But before we make the move and start making the site better, we'd like to capture a baseline set of diagnostics around the current site so that we have great data to measure future changes against.

What automated tests should we run on the existing site?

DigitalGov.gov on WordPress — https://www.digitalgov.gov
demo.digitalgov.gov on Federalist — https://demo.digitalgov.gov 

We migrated around 1902 posts, pages and events from WordPress to Hugo/Federalist.

Contact Us page has link to .md file

https://www.digitalgov.gov/contact-us/

Link on article guidelines goes to https://www.digitalgov.gov/join-digitalgov.md
should be: https://www.digitalgov.gov/join-digitalgov#guidelines (there's an anchor link on the H2)

Demo QA - WP Tools > Redirection (list, settings)

13 redirects (12, plus 1 vanity URL) listed on
https://www.digitalgov.gov/wp-admin/tools.php?page=redirection.php

Menu has links for: Redirects | Groups | Modules | Log | 404s | Options | Support

There is an "RSS Token" under Options, and I see a button to import redirections from an existing .htaccess file, or a CSV file, but not to export.

Audit of our Navigation structure

What is working, what is not working in our navigation?

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Todo:

• Document the contents of our current navigation
• Document the navigation mechanism
• Collect examples of other navigation options
• Find any relevant research (our own, or elsewhere)
• Suggest improvements to our navigation

Feel free to ✏️ this list.

Add section in style guide Event pages

Take a look at how we are writing our event pages and come up with style guide for copy on event pages. This will help us (DGU team) and partners who write the event text.

Create a Service Design Resource Page

There is growing interest within TTS to have a home for how-tos, templates, documentation, and examples of agencies taking action around Service Design and there are many teams that are already taking advantage of service design blueprints as a means of drawing a larger picture of how services are delivered and that components go into making it possible.

This is a request to start a resource page on DigitalGov where we can link to the tools, resources, and documents that already exist.

To get this page going, I would suggest that we reach out to the #service-design channel in the TTS Slack for examples.

Document our process for communicating changes to the site

Redesign/rebuild the DigitalGov Homepage to better reflect what we publish

The Problem(s) with a feed-based homepage template

Like most blogs, the current way that the DigitalGov.gov homepage is produced is based off of feed of new blog posts, but this model is not ideal for a site like DigitalGov that has a diverse body of content, across a number of different content types. Here are some of the problems with a feed-based layout for a homepage:

1. When we want to publish something, it needs to be in the form of a blog post on our site.
2. If we want to add an additional content type to the logic that controls the homepage, that work falls on an engineer to make the logic to work in one way. The engineer also potentially needs to write metadata within posts and/or build in tools that give editors more control over the items that appear on the homepage, and where they'll are positioned. This work is costly and not fast.
3. We can't easily put something on our homepage that points to another part of our site, or to another domain all together without it being in a pre-approved content type.
4. Some of our content is more important than others, and needs to be in the spotlight for longer periods of time. We need a more granular control over what stays on the homepage. Again, more logic that an engineer needs to write and more tooling for editors is needed to make this happen.

Layout problems with a feed-based homepage

The second set of issues with the current DigitalGov.gov homepage is with the specific layout of the items on the page.

1. There is little room for nuance in a feed based layout. It only displays items that have been returned from the database. So adding in links to related topics or articles in the layout is complicated.
2. Currently, each item requires an image, and each image needs to be the same aspect ratio to maintain the height of the layout. (see Figure 002)
3. Currently, each item requires an editor to write a headline that is roughly the same length as the other headlines on the page. If one of the headlines is longer, it increases the height of the whole row of items, pushing the second row of items down the page. (see Figure 002)
4. The template assumes that an image + headline + summary is the best material to promote every piece.
5. The template template assumes that the headline that works on the article page is also be the best headline to promote each piece on the homepage.

Content problems with our current homepage

The last set of problems with the current DigitalGov.gov homepage design is around the package of content that is being featured, and what it is communicating to the reader.

1. It is not clear how old or new this package of content is, or how frequently this site publishes new updates. (see Figure 003)
2. All of these stories have stock imagery with them, which significantly lowers the expectations and value of the content. (see Figure 003)
   • In addition, stock photography that is paid for is usually bought for use on a single site or property, and we've seen our get syndicated to a number of sites.
3. Again, we are only able to feature items that we publish.

What we'd like out of a new homepage layout

1. We'd like the ability to easily point to updates we're making to our resource pages, community pages, events, videos, trainings and activity on GitHub.
2. Where possible, we would like create packages around the things we are pointing to. So don't just link to the individual URL, offer the reader a number of entry points to related resources.
3. We'd like to have full control over how we craft an item on our homepage, and what it points to.
4. We'd like to have a variety of templates for promoting an item, some louder/quieter than others.
5. We'd like the ability to reflect all of the content we publish on the homepage, should we choose.
6. We'd our homepage to reflect how long ago the site was last updated.

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Open Issues

Obviously, a change like this will include many open issues and tasks. We will update them here as they are opened/closed.

Demo QA - HubSpot

Subscribe URL: http://connect.digitalgov.gov/subscribe

In WordPress:
https://www.digitalgov.gov/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=hubspot-tracking-code-admin.php

Clean up the Checklist of Requirements for Federal Websites and Digital Services page

The Checklist of Requirements for Federal Websites and Digital Services page needs to be updated to be more mobile-friendly and readable. It is currently a two-column layout within a two-column layout.

The migration process was not kind to this page. None the less, it can be a lot more readable.

Change the DNS for DigitalGov.gov to point to Federalist

Canonical content indicator

When we cross-post from another site, we should be using <link rel="canonical" href="#" /> to indicate that the other site is the canonical source for that content.

Here is some potential logic for that code in the head that pulls from the front-matter

  {{/* Only if this is a crosspost — need to add to frontmatter */}}
  {{ with $.Params.xposted_from }}
  {{ "<!-- Cross posted -->" | safeHTML }}
  <link rel="canonical" href="{{ . }}" />
  {{ end }}

Explore using GitHub Issues as a way to leave a comment on a page

Explore using GitHub Issues as a way to leave a comment on a page
One Issue per page

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Slack AMA Connect Standards Team with Public

Published September 25, 2017

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Authors

• @donjo
• @msecret
• @yowill
• @rtwell
• @toolness

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✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️✏️
Use this issue to discuss the article.
Edits and corrections can be posted here or filed as their own issues. View this post in Github

Resources page Search Box: inconsistent results accuracy

Resources search box on https://www.digitalgov.gov/resources/

1. I searched for analytics and got 5 pages of results..
   a - 32 of 41 results have this in results summary:
   *Challenges & Prizes · Content Management Systems · CrowdSource Mobile Testing · Data.gov · Digital Analytics Program (metrics) · Electronic ... *
   but that text is not anywhere on those pages; it's from the Services drop down menu.
   b - the Resources page is included in results (shouldn't that be filtered out?)

2. I searched for Section 508
   Got 1 page of results.. the Resources page is also included in results, but all else is normal; "section 508" appears in text of those pages. 

3. Searched for CMS
   Got 1 page of results..

• the Resources page is also included in results
• 2 resource pages don't have anything to do with CMS/content management systems:
  Checklist of Requirements for Federal Websites and Digital Services
  https://www.digitalgov.gov/resources/checklist-of-requirements-for-federal-digital-services/
  Top 10 Best Practices for Multilingual Websites
  https://www.digitalgov.gov/resources/top-10-best-practices-for-multilingual-websites/

Put together a GitHub resource page

We should have a resource page on DigitalGov for GitHub.

For starters, maybe it can include:

• a description of why we use GitHub in Government
• links to how to write a good issue
• our own style guide for writing issues
• process/flow best practices
• how to use releases

Create internal checklist for YouTube live set-up

There are many tasks associated with setting up a YouTube live event and we need a document/checklist with all of those tasks. Some examples of specific tasks:

• requesting title card week prior to event
• immediately publishing the captions
• moderating the live chat questions
• a/v troubleshooting (volume levels change on mics, make sure batteries are fresh.)
• lighting adjustments
• camera adjustments
• presenters logging troubleshooting (grayed out screen and adding them as managers of DG YT account)
• etc.

Figure out which characters we need to be converting in front-matter

In the front-matter generator, I am combing for a number of characters and converting them to entities and I get the sense that we may not need to do this for all the characters now that they are in strings (though maybe quotes?)

Would be nice to do some tests to make sure and remove some of the character conversions if we don't need them there.

Migrate all the old posts from Medium into the site

We currently have a number of posts in Medium that we need to export and move into Federalist: https://medium.com/@DigitalGov

Once they are exported, we can easily transform them into markdown.
Note: The images might need to be uploaded separately and linked into the posts.

Demo QA - Events & DGU pages

Events
https://demo.digitalgov.gov/events/
https://demo.digitalgov.gov/event/an-around-world-recap-plain-monthly-meeting/
https://demo.digitalgov.gov/event/dap-learning-series-visualizing-analytics-data-part-2/
https://demo.digitalgov.gov/event/connect-with-your-spanishlanguage-audience-on-social-media/

Featured images missing; need for social sharing

The 3 above are all online.. can we embed Google Maps for those with physical locations?

Pages menu to archive points to https://www.youtube.com/user/howtogov
should be https://www.youtube.com/c/DigitalGov

DGU page
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/digitalgov-university/ (not 2-column)
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/digitalgov-university/ (2-column)

Form link now to Google doc, but many agencies block them.. what's Plan B?
Original in WP: https://www.digitalgov.gov/digitalgov-university/digitalgov-university-event-and-training-request-form/

Image on Demo is too small and should be centered https://s3.amazonaws.com/sitesusa/wp-content/uploads/sites/212/2017/06/600-x-445-SocialGov.jpg

The Add This/Share icons missing

Link on Recaps button is broken -
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/tag/recap/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/tag/recap (404 page)

Pull last updated info from Git into the pages

We should be displaying the This page was last updated on: info in all of our pages. It can link directly to the GitHub commit for that page

See: https://gohugo.io/variables/git/

Put this in the config:

enableGitInfo           : true

Sample code:

<em>Updated: {{ .Page.Lastmod }}, Version: {{ .GitInfo.Hash }}</em>

online event: FedRAMP Tailored: Overview of the Finalized New Baseline

Online event scheduled for 11/15 1pm - 2pm ET

event page: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/event/fedramp-tailored-overview-finalized-new-baseline/
YouTube live link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC6GfzTnaNY
FedRelay link: http://www.fedrcc.us//Enter.aspx?EventID=3444144&CustomerID=321
Google forms eval (attendee): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflrZpvm3TqdxgsYYMTUNeEvWKm2UkqiujWXh1uVTELMH8H5g/viewform?usp=sf_link

Update our About Page

Remove Google Plus icon in header & footer?

Related to the Terms of Service (TOS) email chain last week -- we no longer have a gov't TOS for Google Plus.

Our old posts and comments still exist https://plus.google.com/109077476228639396954 and are still viewable to anyone not logged in via a GSA account -- however, I get this page (attached photo) when I try to view comments when logged in with my GSA account.

Should we just remove social icons in header & footer?

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todo

• Remove google plus link/icon from header
• Remove google plus link/icon from footer

HubSpot subscribe page: check boxes missing checks

error on HubSpot subscribe page - https://connect.digitalgov.gov/subscribe

I am subscribed to both but neither box is checked
~ the newsletter(s) you're subscribed to should be already checked [so you can unsubscribe by unchecking the box(es)]

List of other caption services

Currently we use FedRelay (provided free through GSA) as our caption service for all DGU events. We've found that FedRealy/Caption Colorado isn't very accurate and we'd like to see what alternatives are available.

Link in yellow bar at top of Demo homepage doesn't appear

Link to the live site is not visible like it is on other pages (see https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/), but on https://demo.digitalgov.gov/index.html if you hit tab key once and then hit enter, the live site opens in new tab

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todo

• homepage link should appear as digitalgov.gov

Create prominent links to the Web Design Standards within DigitalGov

The U.S. Web Design Standards are an integral part to the tools people in Government should be using to craft government websites. In addition, they now part of the DigitalGov team.

The goal would be to drive more traffic to the Standards from DigitalGov by creating more prominent links to the Standards from within DigitalGov.

There are only a few places outside of specific blog posts that we link to the Standards. At the moment, there is a single link on the main Resources page under Design: https://www.digitalgov.gov/resources/

Here is a look at the traffic to the USWDS site from DigitalGov.gov:
(uniques / pageviews) vs number of blog posts that mention and link to the USWDS

• May 2016: 0/0 | 0
• Jun 2016: 163/237 | 0
• Jul 2016: 229/311 | 0
• Aug 2016: 386/529 | 0
• Sep 2016: 413/620 | 0
• Oct 2016: 390/625 | 0
• Nov 2016: 338/457 | 0
• Dec 2016: 391/506 | 0
• Jan 2017: 441/626 | 0
• Feb 2017: 343/440 | 3
• Mar 2017: 680/861 | 3
• Apr 2017: 632/820 | 2
• May 2017: 551/725 | 2
• Jun 2017: 530/692 | 2
• Jul 2017: 419/555 | 0
• Aug 2017: 280/390 | 0
• Sept 2017: 438/602 | 1

Audit our resource pages

During the migration we ended up moving over all of our resource pages, including a handful of the pages that we hoped to kill and redirect in the process. 😕

https://www.digitalgov.gov/resources/

Which means, that we have a lot of pages that are old or dead, or pages that we no longer need or want. There are probably a number of pages that need a considerable amount of formatting and cleanup.

We need to go through all of them and determine

• which ones we'd like to kill
• which ones we need to merge
• which ones are great and need more promotion

We should also figure out how we would like to structure for the files in the repo.

Before we get started on this

We need to:

• Create a new branch for this work
• get comfortable with GitHub Desktop and Atom (it'll be needed)
• figure out a process for going through all the resource pages and how the work will be tracked
• make sure we're clear on how to redirect pages we no longer need
• create an example of a cleaned up and organized resource page

Create DGU event moderator opener/closer script

We want to create a moderator script to be sure they cover all necessary information at both the beginning and end of each event. It will also be helpful as a guide for how long introductions of presenters should be and anything else relevant to moderating an online event.

Create/Update DGU email templates

create new templates for:

• confirmation email when people register for an event
• reminder emails (day prior, day of) for event
• post-event email

YouTube Video SEO with Randy Abramson from VOX

Randy Abramson used to work at the BBG in the government, and is now one of the heads of video at VOX in DC.

He and I had a conversation last week where he said he would be up for giving a talk to Govt about some of the YouTube video optimization + SEO work they are doing at VOX.
He sent along a deck as a preview.

YouTube SEO 2017.pptx

1 DGU podcast article is missing

6 podcasts are on iTunes and SoundCloud
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/digitalgov-podcast/id1042016789
https://www.soundcloud.com/digitalgov (have to be logged out of GSA network to view)

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DigitalGov Podcast: Behind the Scenes of the Social and Behavioral Science Team
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2016/04/04/digitalgov-podcast-behind-the-scenes-of-the-social-and-behavioral-science-team/

DigitalGov Podcast: DAP Delivers Data for 4,000 Websites
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/06/29/digitalgov-podcast-dap-delivers-data-for-4000-websites/

DigitalGov Podcast: Leaders Come and Go, But Your Customers Will Remain
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/07/17/digitalgov-podcast-leaders-come-and-go-but-your-customers-will-remain/

DigitalGov Podcast: The Secrets Behind CIA Social Media
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/08/25/digitalgov-podcast-the-secrets-behind-cia-social-media/

DigitalGov Podcast: Bridging Content and Discovery Through DigitalGov Search
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/10/30/digitalgov-podcast-bridging-content-and-discovery-through-digitalgov-search/

1 is missing on site:
DigitalGov's Inaugural Podcast: How IVR Supports Contact Centers
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/04/30/digitalgovs-inaugural-podcast-how-ivr-supports-contact-centers/

Gather a list of government agencies thier corresponding GitHub Orgs/pages

Add USWDS "An official gov't website" banner

Best example at https://www.usa.gov/

18f.gov and many others are missing the newer "Here's how you know" link that expands the banner

Demo QA - main Communities page links/URLs

Communities main page
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/ (not 2-column)
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/ (2-column)

Add This/Share missing (this, and individual pages)

page links -

Agile/Lean:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/agile-lean-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/agile-lean/

Artificial Intelligence for Citizen Services:
live: https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/168110
demo: https://www.gsa.gov/technology/government-it-initiatives/emerging-citizen-technology/artificial-intelligence-for-citizen-services

Blockchain:
live: https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/168102
demo: https://www.gsa.gov/technology/government-it-initiatives/emerging-citizen-technology/blockchain

BusinessUSA:
live: none
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/business-usa/

Challenges & Prizes:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/challenges-prizes-community/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/challenges-prizes/

Community Solutions:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/community-solutions/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/community-solutions/

Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/federal-crowdsourcing-and-citizen-science/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/crowdsourcing-and-citizen-science/

G3C:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/government-contact-center-council-g3c/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/government-contact-center-council/

Government Customer Experience:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/customer-experience-community/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/customer-experience-community/

MobileGov:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/mobile/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/mobile/

Multilingual Digital Group:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/government-multilingual-websites-community/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/multilingual/

Note: Laura Godfrey request: Mass find-and-replace after launch: Change tag https://www.digitalgov.gov/tag/multilingual-digital-group/, all text in posts & pages from "Multilingual Digital Group" to "Multilingual Community of Practice"

Open Data:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/open-data-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/open-data/

OpenGov:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/open-government-opengov-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/open-government/

Plain Language Action and Information Network:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/plain-language-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/plain-language/

SocialGov:
original: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/social-media/
live: https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/168114
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/social-media/

User Experience:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/federal-user-experience-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/user-experience/

Video CoP:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/video-production-pros-community-of-practice/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/video-production/

Virtual/Augmented Reality:
live: https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/168118
demo: https://www.gsa.gov/technology/government-it-initiatives/emerging-citizen-technology/virtual-and-augmented-reality

Web Content Managers:
live: https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/web-managers-forum/
demo: https://demo.digitalgov.gov/communities/web-content-managers/

look at FY18 DGU metrics sheet and re-evaluate the metrics we're collecting

We collect information about our DGU classes BUT are we collecting and tracking the right information? How is this information helping us tell a story and measuring impact?

FY17 metrics - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-YmxSGxY3Fz7-PHS4CyYjMTmBEnG_nlsCO1u4uEyYDU/edit#gid=1083370486
FY18 metrics - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/197hFlT9Rnf00iIs3huf8YlomsKwWAMoKbxT7ooxsZ_Y/edit#gid=1083370486

Develop a Framework for our Style Guide

We have a Style Guide we created for DigitalGov when we launched in 2014. It's been updated a few times since then, but with our move to digital.gov and on the Federalist platform, we should take another look and update.

We should also include any guidance around our new brand, in the updated Style Guide.
Here is the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QPSNAa9GGoy_BoaAlQ0yP6uDuIG_eijoYW5x6Qxy7gk/edit#

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it should include …

• they top, key buckets for our style guide
• recommendations on should be in those buckets

it's done when …

• it has been presented to the team
• everyone feels like it is ready to start being populated

Use tags and categories more consistently

Our content is structured with tags and categories to make content easier to find and sort, but there's a lot of redundancy between the taxonomy of our tags and categories — and we don't have much good information about how people use this organization to find what they're looking for.

We need to understand how we're using tags and categories, learn industry best practices for organization, and discover how our readers use this navigation aid on our site. Then we can go in and do the hard work of updating our tags and categories to better suit the content and our readers' needs.

todo

• Gather information about our categories and tags
• Find number of categories
• Find number of tags
• Find number of posts associated with each
• Identify redundancy
• Collect analytics on tag/category pages
• Identify similar sites for comparative analysis
• Analyze how those site use tags/categories/other
• Link to internal or external research
• Identify possible solutions
• Bring to the team for discussion

Make improvements to the Terms of Service Agreements pages

The Negotiated Terms of Service Agreements page is one of our most visited pages.
We should make some improvements to these pages so that they are more readable.

• https://demo.digitalgov.gov/resources/federal-compatible-terms-of-service-agreements/
• https://demo.digitalgov.gov/resources/negotiated-terms-of-service-agreements/
• https://demo.digitalgov.gov/resources/agency-points-of-contact-for-federal-compatible-terms-of-service-agreements/