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18F’s year of launches
on October 8, 2024
Over the past year, 18F has helped amazing partner agencies launch new software products to better serve their users. Here are six launches that 18F has supported this year.
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Catching up with the TANF Data Portal project
on September 7, 2023
Around 800,000 low-income American families receive cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) each month. 18F and the Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Family Assistance partnered on building a new data portal for TANF. We caught up with Office of Family Assistance leaders to see how their agency is continuing with the work.
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18F Checks In With the DAWSON Project at the U.S. Tax Court
on April 25, 2023
The United States Tax Court is an independent federal court that settles disputes between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service. Since the 1980s, the Court has used a modified commercial software product to manage its operations. In December 2020, the Court introduced DAWSON, a modern open-source case management system developed with assistance from an industry partner and 18F. DAWSON streamlined Court operations and changed the way the public interacts with the Court.
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18F Checks In With [Jubilant Swordtail]* and the USGS Water Resrouces Mission Area Projects
on February 24, 2023
At 18F, we like to keep in touch with our project partners. 18F partnered with the USGS Water Resources Mission Area from March 2020 to June 2022 on a wide variety of projects together. We caught up with [Jubilant Swordtail]*, Chief for the Web Communications Branch at USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
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Content design for beta.ada.gov: writing for action and flexibility
on July 13, 2022
We worked with a team at the Department of Justice to redesign ADA.gov. We helped them launch beta.ada.gov, and we’ve designed new content for some of the most sought-after ADA topics.
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Tech talks with One OHS
on January 25, 2022
Building cross-system interoperability is long-term work, but the tech talks became an early step in establishing shared understandings and contexts for OHS.
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Building capacities within a government agency to build and support a new case management system: part 2
on June 17, 2021
This is part two in a two-part series with our partner team at the U.S. Tax Court about their experiences building their new, open source case management system, DAWSON. For this post, we talked to [Adventurous Stork]*, Technical Lead on the project.
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Building capacities within a government agency to build and support a new case management system: part 1
on June 16, 2021
This is part one in a two-part series with our partner team at the U.S. Tax Court about their experiences building their new, open source case management system, DAWSON. For this post, we chatted with [Intrepid Barnacle]*, Product Owner and Deputy Clerk of the Court, Case Services Officer.
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Improving the way the U.S. Tax Court engages with the public
on June 15, 2021
The United States Tax Court is an independent federal court that provides a forum for settling disputes between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service. After 30 years, the Court shifted the way it manages Court operations — here’s how 18F and the Court worked together to improve the public’s experience.
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Building product management capacity in government part 3: A day in the life of a new product owner
on May 3, 2021
This is part four in a series of posts about building product management capacity in government agencies. For this post, we chatted with [Yellow Ray]* from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division about his experience as a product owner on Civil Rights reporting portal.
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The 18F Public Benefits Portfolio reflects on the last year
on March 31, 2021
Pairing our deepening domain knowledge of the unique nuances of benefits administration and delivery across programs and levels of government with our core expertise in modern technology and digital service delivery, 18F’s Public Benefits Portfolio team helped empower our partners to take some important leaps forward to rise to the critical challenges of the current moment, and we’re thrilled to highlight some of their achievements from this past year.
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Using agile and DevOps to get better results than a change control board
on March 2, 2021
Agile is a way of quickly reacting to the demands of your project and DevOps is a methodology for building infrastructure and applications that is able to adapt and change quickly. Using these methods, you can avoid many of the pitfalls of traditional waterfall practices described above.
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18F and TTS Office of Acquisition award first assisted acquisition
on December 17, 2020
The Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Family Assistance, TTS, and the vendor community worked together to improve the TANF Data Reporting System (TDRS) to make it easier and faster for States, Tribes, and Territories to support low income families
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Doing user research to design the next-gen WDFN
on August 6, 2020
The USGS Water Resources Mission Area is striving to make their water data easier to access for their users. This involves stepping back and reviewing how users currently use waterdata.usgs.gov so that we can make informed decisions moving forward.
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Transforming how DOJ's Civil Rights Division engages with the public
on July 7, 2020
In order to be more responsive to the public’s changing communication needs and the increased reporting volume,the Civil Rights Division, in close collaboration with 18F, has launched a user-friendly online submission experience at civilrights.justice.gov that transforms the way the Division collects, sorts, and responds to civil rights reports.
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18F is here to help during critical times
on April 9, 2020
Government agencies are seeing their systems and staff stretched to the max as they do their best to serve the public. 18F is a team of government employees with expertise in modern digital tools and practices, and we’re here to help
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Six years improving the experience of government
on March 19, 2020
We’re celebrating another birthday at 18F, and we thought we’d take the opportunity to reflect on how our organization has grown and progressed in the last year
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A new focus area for 18F - National Security & Intelligence
on December 10, 2019
18F is launching a new National Security and Intelligence Portfolio to deepen our impact working with agencies working on national defense issues.
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Long-term teams, not sudden handoffs
on December 3, 2019
Don’t let your agency waste knowledge and opportunity. Instead of planning for a handoff to operations and maintenance, plan for a long-term team. Instead of launching your project and then keeping it running, plan for ongoing development.
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Becoming a product manager
on November 21, 2019
If you had asked me two years ago what a product manager is, I wouldn’t have known. And, yet, today, that is one of my titles. Along the way, I have been lucky to receive guidance and coaching from experienced product managers at the General Services Administration’s 18F.
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18F’s four favorite projects of 2018
on March 22, 2019
To continue our birthday celebrations, we’re saluting those projects and partners that inspired our team to do their best to improve the user experience of government. We asked staff from acquisitions to strategy to share what project they loved working on during the past year.
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Happy 5th birthday, 18F
on March 19, 2019
It’s been five years since we launched 18F, and we’ve grown a lot since that day — in size, in focus, and in impact. We wanted to celebrate our fifth birthday with a look back at what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve learned along the way, and where we’re headed next.
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Buying Christmas tree permits online with Open Forest
on February 12, 2019
After a two year partnership with the Forest Service, we're excited to announce the launch of Open Forest where you can buy a permit to cut down your own Christmas tree in a National Forest.
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Modular contracting and working in the open
on October 25, 2018
Working in the open is a key component of building trust between governments and vendor partners. Read about how the State of Alaska is using openness and code sharing to foster greater trust between government project teams and vendor teams as part of a large legacy system overhaul.
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Presidential Innovation Fellows bringing new approaches to nation’s biggest challenges
on July 3, 2018
As the application process for the Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program ramps up, a number of applicants have been asking: What is it like to be a Presidential Innovation Fellow? Two Fellows, Dr. [Patient Mallard]* and [Reasonable Rattlesnake]*, share the origins of their collaboration and a typical day in the life of a Fellow.
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Using agile methods to improve the RFP process
on May 22, 2018
The process of developing and issuing RFPs is often viewed as a one off - a special activity that occurs infrequently and in isolation. What if we applied the principles of iteration and continuous improvement to the way that RFPs are developed?
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Aiming for obsolescence: Lessons from an 18F product transition
on May 1, 2018
Four years into 18F’s work, transition is a topic of frequent conversation among our team. Every organization and every project is different. At the same time, every transition offers lessons that can be applied to the next.
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Win big by going small
on March 13, 2018
Adopting this “smaller is better” mindset as a way to overhaul a large, complex legacy system can feel counterintuitive. But the notion of smallness — of distilling complex, interdependent tasks into achievable units of work — is fundamental to building modern software in both the private and public sector.
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Getting prepared to prototype
on January 30, 2018
In product development, we often use prototypes to understand user needs and reduce risk. Prototypes are a great way to test out ideas or approaches before you actually commit to building anything, but governments are not always set up to develop and use prototypes efficiently before building digital services.
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[Spellbinding Hoverfly]* Model civil servant
on December 12, 2017
In the course of our engagements, we’ve had many amazing partners who have been practicing similar innovative techniques long before 18F existed, but usually in isolation. Today, we’re highlighting one of those amazing partners: [Spellbinding Hoverfly]*, at the Bureau of Fiscal Service in the Department of the Treasury.
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18F and federal laboratories work together to bring better data to businesses
on October 5, 2017
Working with 18F helped the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer create the largest collection of federal laboratory data and technology resources available online.
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A day in the life of an 18F product owner
on September 18, 2017
The Technology Transformation Services (TTS) has been working with the Forest Service in an effort to move their permitting process online. We’ve previously written about how doing this work in the open can benefit other agencies with permit systems. In this post, we’ll focus on why it’s important to have a product owner, what that looks like from the Forest Service’s perspective, and why a product owner is critical to successful projects.
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How Alaska is using transparency to attract modern software vendors
on September 12, 2017
Alaska’s Department of Health & Social Services is working with the Technology Transformation Services’ Office of Acquisition on a new approach to product and acquisition management to develop a modern, integrated eligibility system for their Division of Public Assistance. We’re experimenting with a transparent approach so that anyone can see, and provide public feedback on, our progress.
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Forest Service: Six months in, checking our assumptions
on September 8, 2017
The Technology Transformation Services has been working with the Forest Service in an effort to move their permitting process online. In this post, we’ll focus on how taking a step back to check your assumptions can reduce the risk that your project will go off course.
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Opening the nation’s crime data
on September 7, 2017
For more than eight decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected nationwide crime data under the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. While the data has always been publicly available via static reports, the first release of the Crime Data Explorer makes it easier than ever for anyone to access and use the data.
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Why discovery research matters for modular procurement
on June 22, 2017
The Technology Transformation Service (TTS) has been working with the Forest Service since August 2016 on what will eventually be an agency-wide system to process permit applications. TTS is primarily helping the Forest Service hire private vendors for this work, rather than building it ourselves, and one way we’re improving that process is through “discovery research.”
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The new FEC.gov
on May 30, 2017
Last week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) unveiled their new website at FEC.gov. This new site is the result of a years-long collaboration with GSA’s 18F and features completely revamped tools for exploring campaign finance data.
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Remembering Larry Mathias, an early partner and excellent civil servant
on April 27, 2017
We’re writing this to remember and pay tribute to Larry Mathias, who passed away unexpectedly this month. Larry was a senior contracting officer at the General Services Administration. He managed technology systems for the OASIS program and was instrumental in helping GSA launch this new contract vehicle. Larry was also an early believer in 18F.
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NASA’s journey with the U.S. Web Design Standards
on March 21, 2017
The U.S. Web Design Standards are currently implemented on hundreds of government sites, with an audience of more than 26 million monthly users, and they’ve been recommended by the Office of Management and Budget for all government agencies. We chatted with [Furious Otter]*, Senior Software Developer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, to talk about his team’s use of the U.S. Web Design Standards.
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One agency’s investments in open source mean others benefit
on March 15, 2017
One of the advantages to working across government is that we often have opportunities to share insights from other projects, repurpose code, and connect otherwise disjointed efforts. This happens in direct work with our partners, but also on our blog and in our GitHub repository. Our code, guides, and other work are all free for other government agencies and the public to use for their benefit (and we love when people do).
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The life-changing magic of writing release notes
on January 17, 2017
A key part of agile development is constantly shipping new features. With so many changes happening to the product, it can be hard to keep track of how the product is growing and improving. Release notes help keep everyone on the team in the know about what’s shipping, give a clear list of features to check, and help always frame our work in terms of the value it delivers to users.
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Building an effective agile partnership between government and industry
on January 5, 2017
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor has been with 18F at the forefront of digital transformation and has been an outstanding early adopter. One of our latest initiatives has been an Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement (Agile BPA) Task Order to create the initial version of a web application tool for the Section 14(c) certificate application process.
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Tracking the U.S. government's progress on moving to HTTPS
on January 4, 2017
The White House HTTPS policy generated significant HTTPS adoption in the U.S. government. HTTPS is now used for most web requests to executive branch .gov websites, and the government now outpaces the private sector on HTTPS.
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TTS projects forward Open Government Partnership principles
on December 15, 2016
The U.S. Open Government National Action Plans promote the Open Government Partnership’s principles of transparency, facilitating access to government services for the public, and citizen engagement. 18F has worked with several agencies to advance the these goals through projects like DATA Act, eRegulations, USEITI, College Scorecard, and the Public Participation Playbook.
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Curate the best thinking available
on November 30, 2016
The Federal Source Code Policy, which was signed this year, requires federal agencies to inventory their custom software and make the inventory available for consumption and display by code.gov (among other things). The most pressing work in building code.gov was defining a software metadata schema — a way for agencies to format the details of the software they’ve built.
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code.gov is the next milestone in federal open source code
on November 7, 2016
Last week, U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott announced the launch of code.gov, another important milestone in the federal government’s adoption of open source code. The new site provides access to more than 50 open source projects from 13 federal agencies.
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Three small steps you can take to reboot agile in your organization
on October 25, 2016
This past summer, 18F held an agile workshop for the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. An agency with roots going back to World War II, NTIS is facing a future that requires a strategic realignment towards open data and services.
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Get the most juice out of the squeeze
on October 11, 2016
Through analytics and moderated sessions, we can learn what user goals are and enhance the platform to help them achieve those goals. By creating universal search across legal resources, people will be able to locate information more efficiently. This tool will allow them to better understand and comply with campaign finance laws, thus helping advance the FEC's mission.
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Using RFPs to make every dollar count
on October 3, 2016
We were thrilled to be invited to help National Endowment for the Arts and even more thrilled that we could help them succeed in a way that prevented years of back-and-forth exchanges and many millions of dollars spent. Instead, they invested $30,000 and a couple months to build the Bright Spots interactive graphic.
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Pro tips for data-friendly regulations and proposals
on September 27, 2016
We launched the eRegulations Notice and Comment pilot this summer, and in the process saw some patterns in how our partner agencies write their regulations. In response, the eRegulations team prepared a guide to help agencies write regulations in a more data- and human-friendly format that would be easier to parse — thus saving time and money.
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[Bold Sloth]*: A wordsmith joins the government
on September 6, 2016
[Bold Sloth]* joined 18F in September of 2015. Before 18F, [Bold]* was a content strategist at Facebook, Lab Zero, and Mule Design in San Francisco. She started her professional writing practice at Apple, where she served as communications lead for five years and helped launch the original iPhone and iPad.
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DATA Act prototype: Simplicity is key
on August 29, 2016
To ensure that agencies could focus on the important work of joining their internal systems without unnecessary technology distractions, we (the 18F and Treasury prototype team) sought to deliver the simplest possible interface that would accept agency data using the simplest possible format for that data.
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[Likeable Mole]*: Unlocking the true potential of public service
on August 26, 2016
All throughout the summer, we’ll be profiling members across the 18F team. [Likeable Mole]* joined 18F in May 2016 after stints at Twitter, Sonos, Digg, Paypal, and Obama for America. He currently works on CALC, a tool that helps the federal contracting community make faster, smarter buying decisions.
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What happens when the whole team joins user interviews
on August 16, 2016
The CALC team is an agile team of four — six if you count the Scrummaster and the Product Owner — building a simple means to load price data into the original CALC tool. They’re an Agile team, which means everybody pitches in on everything to some degree, and here, in their own words, is some reflection on what happened when they all scrubbed in on the discovery phase.
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[Majestic Heron]*: Helping engineer a better 18F
on August 15, 2016
[Majestic Heron]* came to 18F from Dreamworks Animation and the Public Library of Science. She joined 18F in pursuit of a way "to use technology to address big societal problems." After hearing about the U.S. Digital Service and 18F from US Chief Technology Officer, Megan Smith, she was inspired to join.
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Live streamed demos for exponential transparency and information sharing
on July 29, 2016
This spring, the eRegulations Notice & Comment team began building out a new feature set for the platform. To demo the work as we iterated on it, we faced a challenge of finding a way to do connect frequently with the dozens of interested parties. We settled on live streaming our demos through a video website that is accessible by most government agencies, doesn’t require extraneous plugins to operate, allows you to easily stream, but also automatically creates a viewable file afterwards at the same URL.
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New pilot aims to streamline notice and comment process
on July 26, 2016
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began asking the public to comment on a new proposed rule that would affect how the EPA tracks hazardous waste as it moves around the country. This rule is also the pilot of the new notice and comment feature of the eRegulations platform.
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Illinois fourth grade class uses Every Kid in a Park to explore national parks and beyond
on July 6, 2016
One fourth grade class in Monticello, Illinois used the Every Kid in the Park website to learn more about National Parks and create a project for their school’s annual open house. We reached out to Washington Elementary fourth grade teacher Robyn Garrett to learn more about how she used national parks in her curriculum.
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Using plain language to bridge the gap between government and industry
on June 21, 2016
Recently, we partnered with the Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS) here within the General Services Administration (GSA) on a four-month effort to develop a plain language guide, informed by research and interviews, to help technology companies interested in doing business with the federal government better understand how to join IT Schedule 70.
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Two agencies participating in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator pilot
on June 15, 2016
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury are the first two agencies to participate in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Pilot.
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Prototype early, prototype often: A lesson from the DATA Act
on June 14, 2016
The DATA Act is a “tremendous undertaking …[to] standardize how federal agencies report their spending data.” It has the potential to provide unprecedented insight into how the federal government spends money, and it comes with a statutory deadline. Any delay in implementation is a delay in cost savings and transparency, so we’re trying to help the government deliver on the promise of the DATA Act in a timely manner.
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Building better by building together with the Federal Election Commission
on June 7, 2016
How do you work iteratively and in the open in government? How do you transform an agency’s digital presence with agile and user-centered design? We’ve learned a lot about this as we’ve worked alongside our partners at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on beta.fec.gov, and we want to share some of those lessons here.
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Get your pass for Kids to Parks Day
on May 20, 2016
May 21 is Kids to Park Day— a day organized by the National Park Trust to promote nature, learning, and play. And if you’re lucky to have a fourth grader in your family, you can use the Every Kid in a Park program to access all federal lands and waters for free.
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From spreadsheet to API to app: A better contract forecasting tool
on May 2, 2016
Executive branch agencies of the federal government are required by law to tell vendors if and when they plan on making purchases. The General Services Administration (GSA) was forecasting using a crowded spreadsheet containing dozens of columns and hundreds of rows. 18F helped create a new, open-source tool to display contract forecasting opportunities.
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A visit to the National Earthquake Information Center’s open source team
on April 4, 2016
I visited the Earthquakes team at their office on the Colorado School of Mines campus in Golden, CO, to learn about this open source team’s role in public service.
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What 10 weeks at 18F taught me
on April 1, 2016
Calling 18F home for the past two months has given me the opportunity to grow in countless ways. I’ve pushed myself in ways I wasn’t expecting.
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Treasury and the DATA Act: Full of sunshine
on March 15, 2016
To celebrate Sunshine Week, we’re highlighting some groundbreaking open government work by the Department of the Treasury, one of 18F’s partner agencies.
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Lending a helping editorial hand: the 18F Writing Lab
on January 22, 2016
The Writing Lab is a virtual writing center where anyone at 18F can get personalized writing and editing help from members of the content and outreach teams.
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We asked everyone at 18F to reflect on the most meaningful project they worked on this year
on December 23, 2015
2015 was a big year for 18F. We almost doubled in size, worked with 28 different agency partners, and released products ranging from Design Method Cards to cloud.gov. Internally, we improved onboarding and our documentation by releasing guides on topics as diverse as content, accessibility, and creating good open source projects. To mark the end of the year, we reached out to everyone at 18F and asked them to reflect on a meaningful project they worked on this year.
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Plain language for the win: betaFEC’s new content design
on December 17, 2015
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has been working since the 1970s to clarify the rules for raising and spending money in federal elections, and today we’re thrilled to announce the first major content launch of betaFEC: a guide to registration and reporting that makes intricate information easier to understand.
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What’s in the first U.S. Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative report
on December 16, 2015
Just a few months ago we wrote about the next phase of the United States Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (USEITI), one of our oldest projects with the lofty goal of educating and informing public debate around natural resources produced on public land. This week, the U.S. Department of the Interior released the first report from the United States, a major step toward becoming fully compliant with the global EITI standard.
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An open source government is a faster, more efficient government
on December 9, 2015
Regulation 479 is the first Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation on the eRegulations platform. This collaboration is an excellent example of how open source development helps 18F deliver valuable services to our clients and the American public.
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The EPA's new Environmental Digital Services marketplace
on December 3, 2015
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working on ways to contract with high-quality digital service vendors, which is why they just released a Request for Information (RFI) for creating an Environmental Digital Services marketplace.
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A look at complex data in USEITI
on November 30, 2015
We've been working with the Office of Natural Resource Revenues on implementing the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standard, which includes all kinds of data. One new data point we have this year is the federal production number: The amount of a given resource produced on federal lands.
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New playbook details what it's like to work with 18F Delivery
on November 19, 2015
If you or your agency have thought about working with 18F but are unsure of how we work with our partners, we have a new set of guidelines to help you out. The 18F Delivery Partnership Playbook is specifically targeted at federal offices interested in working with 18F to build digital services.
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How the City of Boston is using GSA’s CALC tool
on November 10, 2015
We hoped CALC, a powerful labor category and pricing research tool from GSA and 18F, would save federal contracting officers time and money. Turns out, it’s also saving cities time and money. In August, we found out the City of Boston has been using CALC to vet pricing they receive in response to a request for proposals.
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USEITI: What we learned and where we’re headed
on November 2, 2015
During Sunshine Week, we wrote about our progress on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or EITI, an international coalition organized here by the U.S. Department of the Interior and a multi-stakeholder group that includes representatives from nonprofits, academia, industry and local governments. Since March, the 18F team has worked with the USEITI team to process research on the current state of the project as well as the next steps for the U.S. as a candidate country for the global initiative.
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Welcome to betaFEC: campaign finance for everyone
on October 29, 2015
As the 2016 presidential election heats up, here at 18F we’ve been working with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to make campaign finance data more accessible to the public. Today, we launched betaFEC, the first piece in a complete redesign of the FEC’s online presence. We were excited to work on a project that allowed us to delve into intricate campaign finance data, plain language, and the FEC’s first API.
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Every Kid in a Park: Why we can’t stop smiling
on October 21, 2015
Our projects are iterative, which means we keep working on them after they launch. In keeping with that practice, we’ve kept a close eye on everykidinapark.gov, which went live September 1. We’re excited to share a few of our improvements and updates with you today.
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Five factors for building a successful government-wide digital analytics program
on October 20, 2015
Launched just three years ago, the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) continues to drive the 2012 Digital Government Strategy’s mission to improve the citizen experience by streamlining the collection and analysis of digital analytics data on a federal government-wide scale. Today, 45 agencies — including all CFO Act agencies — have implemented the common code across more than 4,000 public-facing websites, counting 1.5 BILLION pageviews each month.
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USA.gov launches vote.USA.gov to help citizens register and connect with states
on September 22, 2015
One of the most important rights of American citizens is the right to vote. It is the foundation of our democracy, and in many ways, the basis of our government. This is why the team at USA.gov is excited to announce the launch of vote.USA.gov.
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New citizenship resources demystify the naturalization process
on September 21, 2015
For many people, September conjures up happy memories of heading back to school, new backpack and supplies in tow. For new and aspiring citizens, September has additional significance: It’s when the federal government celebrates Constitution Week, a weeklong observance commemorating the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
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Behind the scenes: Building a new College Scorecard with students
on September 14, 2015
How we worked with the Department of Education on new steps to help students, parents and advisers make better college choices, including a new College Scorecard, comprehensive and updated data on higher education institutions, and customized tools using this new data.
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How a two-day sprint moved an agency twenty years forward
on September 9, 2015
At 18F Consulting, we experiment with ways to empower agencies to build cost-efficient, excellent digital solutions. Recently we partnered with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to run a two day “Design/Dev Agile Sprint” to help them modernize their Field Operations Handbook.
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Reimagining the immigration process
on September 8, 2015
Since November, I’ve been working with a team from 18F and USCIS to develop my.uscis.gov, a customer-facing site to help users navigate their relationship with the agency. USCIS approached 18F about the partnership because they wanted to improve the experience for millions of users like my husband and me.
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How to design a government site for kids
on September 3, 2015
Every Kid in a Park gives U.S. fourth graders free access to all federal lands and water for a full year. Here at 18F, we were proud to develop the site in partnership with the U.S. Department of Interior and other federal land management agencies.
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Building the next generation federal workforce
on September 1, 2015
We recently began our partnership with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on the GovConnect initiative, which helps agencies create a culture of excellence based on collaboration and teamwork.
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Communicart tool will streamline purchase card process
on August 6, 2015
Our hope is that our new Communicart tool will streamline the purchase card approval process so government employees can spend more time performing their essential work and less time on the paperwork required to buy a new chair.
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Show me the money: 18F works with Treasury on #TheNew10
on July 17, 2015
Shortly after joining 18F Consulting, the opportunity to work on a Department of the Treasury project came my way. I didn’t stop smiling for what seemed like an hour (or three) after I found out the scope: Treasury was putting a woman on the $10 bill!
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67 million more Federal Election Commission records at your fingertips
on July 15, 2015
The OpenFEC API added a filings endpoint as well as itemized receipt and disbursement data. This is the first major update to the API: The records we’re adding today are the meat and potatoes of campaign finance. You can see in detail where a campaign’s money comes from and where they spend their money.
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Introducing the Federal Election Commission’s first API
on July 8, 2015
Today marks the launch of the FEC’s first API. With that API, searching for candidates and committees will be easier and more interactive. Information is organized around concepts like candidates, which are more welcoming than navigating buckets of information based on forms.
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Taking the pulse of the federal government's web presence
on June 2, 2015
The U.S. federal government is launching a new project to monitor how it's doing at best practices on the web. A sort of health monitor for the U.S. government's websites, it's called Pulse, and you can find it at pulse.cio.gov.
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Meet MyUSA: Your one account for government
on May 18, 2015
If you’re a small-business owner, a veteran, or simply a person interested in tracking the status of your tax return, you’ve likely interacted with multiple government websites, which can require you to fill out a lot of forms and juggle a lot of information. Soon, you’ll be able to use MyUSA — a service that makes government resources easier to access, and government tasks and processes easier to keep track of.
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Announcing the CALC tool: Making pricing research easier in federal procurement
on May 12, 2015
Today, 18F and the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a powerful new labor category and pricing research tool to help the federal contracting community make smarter, faster buying decisions.
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Flexibility when releasing a new product: Peace Corps' new donations platform
on April 9, 2015
We were proud to provide design and development work for the Peace Corps' new donation platform. We want to share a few reflections around drawing that delivery line for this new product, and explain where we think we made the right call and look at other decisions which still keep us up at night.
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One year in and looking forward
on March 20, 2015
One year ago we said, 'Hello, World' and launched not only a new team, but also the promise of a new way of working with and for the Federal Government. Here's what we've accomplished so far.
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Sunshine week: extractive industries transparency initiative event
on March 18, 2015
Today, 18F joins the Departments of the Interior and State at General Assembly DC to and the progress we made together in shedding light on public data.
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How to protosketch
on March 13, 2015
If you are a leading a project, ask for a protosketch. If you are a developer, learn to protosketch. Create imagination-sparking moments, in the meeting.
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O*NET today and beyond
on March 11, 2015
The de facto source of skills information, both inside and outside the federal government, is O*NET - the Occupational Information Network, a data collection program that populates and maintains a current database of the detailed characteristics of workers, occupations, and skills.
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UX lessons learned from a procurement project
on March 6, 2015
How user research better informs the products 18F builds.
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Making procurement easier: questions for developer [Curious Mole]*
on March 5, 2015
We recently sat down with Developer [Curious Mole]* and asked her a few questions about Discovery, a new product designed to make government procurement more efficient.
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Announcing OASIS Discovery: making market research easier
on March 4, 2015
18F is glad to announce the beta release of a new procurement tool, Discovery. Discovery will allow federal acquisition personnel to conduct initial market research more easily and quickly - allowing users to discover and research vendors offering work across a number of professional service categories.
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Three 18F products that will help your workplace
on February 17, 2015
I’ve worked at 18F for exactly six days. During those six days, I learned about a few products that I wish I’d known about while at my previous job. These products would not only have saved me hours of work (itself a bonus), but they also would have fostered long-term collaboration.
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Sketching with code: protosketching
on January 6, 2015
Meetings are boring. Prototypes are cool. Use the meeting to build the prototype. We call building a prototype in three hours or less "protosketching."
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Great community turnout for Midas open source hack night
on December 10, 2014
The October Oopen source hack night was a huge success, both as a community event and for the positive impact on the Midas project.
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18F open source hack series: Midas
on October 1, 2014
18F invites designers and developers from inside and outside of government to join us for a flurry of coding and sketching. Midas is an open source project in active development by 18F, Health & Human Services (HHS) IDEA Lab and the State Department. A small cross-agency team, dedicated to launching this product to empower passionate civil servants and aspiring diplomats all over the world.
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User-centered design at 18F: a design studio for natural resource revenues
on September 25, 2014
We recently kicked off a new project with the Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR). Three weeks into the project, we decided to hold a design studio to solve the problem of how to convey complex revenue data. We needed to better understand the difference between onshore revenue (revenue from natural resources extracted from land) and offshore revenue (revenue from resources extracted from Federal offshore or the U.S. outer continental shelf) as it relates to our system. What is a design studio, you ask...
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A new look at the Freedom of Information Act
on September 4, 2014
As demand for information continues to grow, it is important to continue iterating the ways we refine the FOIA request process. Our effort is one of a number of commitments towards creating a more open, transparent government. We will explore how to supplement the work that has already been done by creating tools to improve the online FOIA requests process by designing for the user.
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Creating an open FEC
on August 21, 2014
A few weeks ago, FEC and 18F started to explore how campaign finance information can be better presented to the public. Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun learning all we can about the FEC, the process by which it collects and shares data, and how individuals outside of FEC use that data on a regular basis to gain insights into the workings of our democracy.
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Take a gander at our /Developer page
on July 23, 2014
A growing trend both inside government and outside is to have a simple welcoming page for outside developers who may be interested in your team’s efforts. This material is often located at website.gov/developer and points visitors to technical material that developers may be interested in, especially APIs. Collecting technical documentation in one place facilitates the developer experience, ensuring that they can find and begin using APIs with as little friction as possible.
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Midas: a marketplace for innovation in government
on July 16, 2014
Midas is an online platform that brings to life the vision of an Innovation Toolkit for government. It's a marketplace of skill building opportunities which matches people to projects that they're passionate about. You can think of it as “Kickstarter for people's time.”
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Announcing the /Developer Program: a new hub for federal API creators
on May 29, 2014
We recently launched our /Developer Program (pronounced "slash developer") to help federal agencies develop useful, robust APIs. The Program is a collection of educational resources, opportunities to engage the community for help and feedback, and tools that can help you build APIs — essentially an ever-growing knowledge base curated by 18F.
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Slides from the inaugural 18F Demo Day
on May 16, 2014
The presentations given at the inaugural 18F Demo Day on May 9, 2014 are online and available at Speaker Deck. If you would like more information on any topic, please feel free to contact the individual speaker.
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With FBOpen API, 18F shows what's possible in government
on May 11, 2014
There has been some great coverage of the new group of tech specialists out of the GSA, dubbed 18F.
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A few notes on NotAlone.gov
on May 9, 2014
At the end of April, Vice President Biden, while rolling out the final report of the White House's 90-day Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, announced the launch of NotAlone.gov, a website built by 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows.
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Announcing FBOpen: Government opportunities made easier
on March 31, 2014
Today we're announcing our first product launch: FBOpen, a set of open-source tools to help small businesses search for opportunities to work with the U.S. government.
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