Federal Tech Talk

Effective web design for federal websites

Ryan Picchini, senior director of Product Marketing at Acquia, joined host John Gilroy on this week's Federal Tech Talk to discuss how effective web design can ...

June 1, 2021 7:09 am

1 min read

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One phrase that sums up today’s discussion is attributed to a member of the venerable Duke Ellington’s band, “It don’t mean a thing if ain’t got that swing.”

To translate into terms that are appropriate for the federal information technology audience, why bother with a website that adheres to the agency objectives and complies with security standards if nobody wants to use it?

Ryan Picchini is the senior director of Product Marketing at Acquia, and he joined host John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk to discuss user interface design for federal websites. He showed how effective web design can help align agency resources and give the flexibility to scale. Ryan provides details on how a content management system can remove silos for citizens to consume federal information.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced citizens to visit federal websites to get information on many issues, the primary being information on vaccines. An argument can be made that effectively providing information can make drastic increases in public health. However, the federal government is certainly involved in much more than public health.

One might ask, “Why worry?” In a recent study conducted by Carahsoft, 23% had concerns with privacy information and the risks of being hacked while 18% were concerned that they could not tell the difference between communications from the federal government and a scam.