Workshop Theme: Focusing on Top Tasks to Improve Services to Citizens
April 24, 2007
FDIC Training Facility, Arlington, VA - Directions to training facility
8:00 - 9:00 |
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Registration and Exhibits FDIC Auditorium Atrium, 3rd floor Building C |
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9:00 - 9:15 |
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Update About Our Community: Martha Dorris, FDIC Auditorium, 3rd floor Building C |
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9:15 – 10:15 |
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Plenary Speaker: Alex Langshur, PublicInsite How to Re-Orient Our Websites Around Users' Top Tasks and Get Top Management Support |
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10:15– 10:30 |
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Break |
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10:30– 11:45 |
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Plenary Speaker: Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski, The World Bank Group Social Media: Transforming Communication Between Government and Its Customers FDIC Auditorium, 3rd floor Building C |
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11:45 – 1:00 |
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Working Lunch |
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1:00 – 2:15 |
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Getting Users From Point A to Point B: Designing & Writing Tasks for the Web |
Using Metrics to Identify & Support Your Top Tasks |
Basics of Search Engine Optimization FDIC Auditorium, Left Side |
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2:15 – 2:30 |
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Break |
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2:30 – 3:45 |
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3:45 – 4:00 |
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Closing Remarks |
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8:00 – 9:00 |
Registration and Exhibits |
For you early birds, don’t sit around waiting for the workshop to start--spend some time in our Exhibits area and learn about some exciting new initiatives and products that other government web managers are using. We’ll have folks on hand to talk about subjects such as:
- Spanish and other language websites
- Live Web Chat
- Voice of America News Website's Usability Testing
- USA Services Program
- Smithsonian’s Intranet Website Redesign
- Plain Language
9:00 – 9:15 |
Update About Our Community: Martha Dorris, Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Communications, GSA |
Come hear about our community’s draft 2007 Action Plan and what it means for you. Martha will energize us about opportunities for cross-agency collaboration, how we can focus on top tasks, and best practices for delivering multi-channel services to citizens. You’ll also learn about our new wiki, how to join the Listserv, and get involved in our various task groups.
9:15 – 10:15 |
Plenary Speaker: Alex Langshur, PublicInsite |
How to Re-Orient Our Websites Around Users' Top Tasks and Get Top Management Support
People come to our government websites to complete tasks -- whether they're completing a form, conducting a transaction, or simply looking for information. For example, they want to renew a driving license. They want to know if they're eligible to participate in a clinical trial. Or they're looking for the latest authoritative information about pandemic flu. We need to change our focus from seeing our websites as a collection of content and applications, to seeing them as a range of visitor tasks. To do this, we need to measure the success of our websites by measuring how easy and fast it is for visitors to complete their most important tasks. In this session, Alex will talk about how we define the most critical tasks for our users, how we can use metrics to measure them, and how we can re-orient our websites to focus what’s most critical, rather than highlight all the clutter. A key focus of Alex’s presentation will be sharing strategies for communicating this message with top management in your organization and how we must collaborate across agencies to better deliver these tasks to citizens.
10:15 – 10:30 |
Break |
| 10:30 – 11:45 | Plenary Speaker: Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski, The World Bank Group |
Social Media: Transforming Communication Between Government and its Customers
The landscape of online communication has changed dramatically and irrevocably. Organizations are less frequently able to control their messages as they once did -- by pushing them one-way using online delivery tools like email and web pages. The public is now equal part creator and consumer of content; the want to be engaged in a conversation. They’re using RSS, blogs, podcasts, wikis, and other tools that are part of a new movement often referred to as “social media” or “Web 2.0.” In this dynamic session, Pierre will talk about his experience implementing a social media strategy at the World Bank and how they’ve begun to implement a more participatory approach to communications vs. the traditional, command-and-control approach. He’ll address such topics as:
- Why and how should government agencies invest in social media?
- What are the risks and how do we manage those risks?
- How can social media help us better deliver our most critical content?
- How do we build a business case among top management?
- How can we collaborate across agencies to do social media?
11:45 – 1:00 |
Working Lunch |
Come meet your colleagues across government to network and talk about ways to collaborate on developing and maintaining content across agencies in such topic areas as health; environment, energy, & agriculture; money & business; science; culture & recreation; social services; defense & security; education & jobs.
1:00 – 2:15 |
Concurrent Breakout Sessions |
1-A: Getting Users From Point A to Point B: Designing & Writing Tasks for the Web: When people come to your website, they’re trying to complete a task and get from Point A to Point B. In many cases, they’re trying to find a specific piece of information, understand a process, or complete a form or application. Come learn the latest usability and design best practices for helping your visitors complete these tasks online. In particular, you’ll learn about reading behaviors of lower literacy users and how to write content and create navigational strategies that will help all your web visitors. In this session, Dr. Summers will share her hands-on analysis of data from eye tracking sessions, research on the latest industry best practices, and experience of developing numerous web design prototypes.
Presenter: Dr. Kathryn Summers, University of Baltimore and co-author of Creating Websites That Work
1-B: Using Metrics to Identify and Support Your Top Tasks
Do you sometimes feel like you're collecting data for the sake of collecting data? If so, you're not alone. In this session, you’ll hear what several agencies are doing to sift through all the data clutter and focus their metrics on identifying and supporting their agency’s top tasks. Speakers will talk about how they’ve used specific analytic tools to: identify what their top tasks are, measure how well their visitors can accomplish them, and determine solutions to help improve those tasks. The session will include an overview of the types of metrics tools in the marketplace today and what to look for when purchasing new tools.
Presenters: Drew Diskin, Inova Health System; Tim Evans, Social Security Administration; Janice R. Nall, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Cari Wolfson, Focus On U!
1-C: Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Every day, millions of people are trying to get something done on the Web, and most of them start by using a commercial search engine. The reality is that many people arrive at our government websites via a commercial search engine (like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others) -- not by typing in the URL of our agency websites. So, are you optimizing your website so these millions of people can find your content and accomplish their tasks? If you haven't yet focused on this critical part of managing your website, now is the time. In this session, you’ll come away with lots of practical tips, including: how to design, structure, and write your website so it's found by major search engines; how to effectively use keywords, links, navigation, and site architecture to improve SEO; and how to get indexed and ranked in major search engines. This is a condensed version of the very popular Web Manager University class offered earlier this semester.
Presenter: Bob Keating, SRA Touchstone Consulting Group
| 2:15 – 2:30 | Break |
| 2:30 – 3:45 | Concurrent Breakout Sessions |
2-A: The Government Web Space in 2011: Predictions for the Future
As the Director of the U.S. government’s official web portal, Bev will share her predictions for where the government web will be in the year 2011. It’s an exciting look at how government web content will be shaped by social changes, changes in user behavior, and new technology. Come along for this entertaining look at the future and see if you agree with Bev’s predictions.
Presenter: Bev Godwin, Director, USA.gov and Web Best Practices
2-B: Success Stories From the 2006 Web Best Practices Award Winners
What does it take to be one of the leading government websites? Come hear lessons learned from two winners of last year’s awards program, who were chosen by our community as “best-in-class.” Janet and Brian will share their successes -- and challenges -- in the areas of managing content, building effective web governance, and how they measure the effectiveness of their websites. They’ll also talk about their experiences in moving their agency websites to a common look and feel and building collaboration among many “silo” organizations. This lively discussion will allow you to ask lots of questions of the panelists.
Presenters: Janet Stevens, Food Safety and Inspection Service; Brian Dunbar, NASA
3:45 – 4:00 |
Closing Remarks and Raffle |
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Page Updated or Reviewed: April 19, 2007
