Eric Egan

The federal government has learned a lot since the HealthCare.gov episode in 2013. By looping in the right stakeholders in the planning stage, the COVIDtests.gov product team was able to work collaboratively to come up with the best approach.

Many government websites aren’t mobile-friendly, easily navigable, or effectively utilizing data. The IRS’ “Where’s My Refund?” tool has all of these problems. These issues are emblematic of federal government websites in general, namely offering a poor customer experience that lacks easy access to information and services that users expect from modern websites.

Agencies should adopt new ways of working that are conducive to change and thus better serve IT modernization.

While the new Federal IT Dashboard looks nice and delivers partly on the “premier user-centric site” self-designation through a clean and navigable user interface, the website fails to present the underlying data in a way that most users can interpret and ultimately falls short as a tool that different stakeholders can leverage to explore federal IT investments and initiatives.

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF)—a working capital fund created by Congress to help bring federal government information technology (IT) systems into the modern age —is essential to leveraging technology investments to improve specific mission outcomes across the whole government.

Last year, President Biden issued two executive orders (EOs) that mandated federal agencies invest in cybersecurity and customer experience (CX).

The much-publicized flap over the IRS’s now-scuttled plans to use facial recognition software to improve its identity verification process obscured the fact that it appears to be moving in the right direction by making concerted, innovative efforts to modernize how it does business.

Using lessons learned from previous “.gov” rollouts and making thoughtful considerations on technical design and customer experience, covidtests.gov demonstrates encouraging progress for federal e-government efforts.

To maximize the impact of the program, the TMF should assist eligible agencies by improving transparency in the approval process, establishing more explicit criteria for which projects meet more forgiving repayment schedules, encourage agencies to partner with the private sector on proposals, and direct agency Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to submit at least one proposal by the end of the year.