Our clients on Capitol Hill have been asking how they can leverage the demand for apps to better connect with constituents. The idea is excellent – mobile devices are increasingly the medium through which individuals access the Web. But while many competitors in our software field promote the app as the latest and greatest in mobile products, at Fireside21, we feel the app fell short in many ways.

The primary deficiency of the app approach to mobile experience is the exceedingly fragmented nature of the growing “smart” device market. If one’s goal is to reach, influence or communicate with as many mobile users as possible, a single app can only offer limited ongoing value. Just examine the most recent US market share data above. An iPhone app, for instance, only reaches about 30% of the mobile marketplace. The last thing we’d recommend to one of our clients is to launch an app that limits their reach to a very specific demographic.

To understand the challenge, consider how an app works. Each smart device has its own distinct operating system (OS). This means the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile and other devices all require different app designs to suit their respective OS. Such circumstances make a consistent user experience difficult to achieve, and managing several different apps with the same content can be as challenging as it is inefficient. Recognizing this and considering the need for a tool that re-syndicates website and other online content through a mobile device, we set to work to develop something better for our clients.

A real solution for how our clients could engage constituents through mobile devices required innovative thinking and the development of a new kind of mobile application. We spent a lot of time discussing, designing and overcoming this challenge. We brainstormed how mobile users might best access content through a mobile platform and what kind of versatility we could offer while maintaining one design that worked across any OS.

As often happens here, we created a new and better tool. The mobile solution we developed takes advantage of the latest HTML5 web technologies to maintain the look and feel of a touch-enabled app, but it works across all operating systems. What is more, it offers greater versatility, such as the ability to use transitions between pages and animation. In short, it is a more robust tool without the limits inherent in traditional apps. Our approach has already been validated as a better path by companies such as Facebook and the Financial Times who are both looking to extract themselves from proprietary app marketplaces.

In working to create this new kind of mobile tool, we enjoyed the larger experience of thinking about how to make our services and products more comprehensive and inclusive. By weighing the challenge and looking for solutions that make it easier for legislators to communicate with constituents, we were able to develop a better product. This kind of an approach is what allows us to provide real solutions, that is, integrated products that offer long-term usefulness based on an ability to provide information in a valuable way.

While apps will continue to be a hot item in the mobile environment, they will remain a limited, often-gimmicky tool. As we tell our clients, if you’re looking for a way to make mobile tools work for you, we don’t have an app for that. We have something better.

Homepage Analysis

Items on your homepage receive the most attention, but it’s impossible to highlight everything on your homepage without it becoming cluttered.  Think about the natural path you would think to follow to find certain pieces of information. Nothing should be “buried” on your website, but highly-trafficked sections should be even easier to find. Check out your web stats to see how people navigate through your website.  If you notice that some popular pages aren’t easily found from your homepage, consider making an update to your navigation or Quick Links.

Internal Page Analysis

Your internal pages should follow a consistent organizational structure. Do you have internal navigation links on your sidebars?  Have they been updated to reflect the important features of a given section?  Perhaps you’ve added a new document type to your website in the past year.  Does your internal sidebar reflect this?  If you find that your internal sidebars are consistently longer than page content, perhaps you should consider consolidating some pages.  Remember, fewer clicks means people can get to information they want faster.

This Wrap Up brings an end to our CMF series, but the work of maintaining your Congressional website doesn’t stop here. We all pay a lot of attention to website content and organization leading up to the awards, but don’t forget that your constituents benefit from a great website all year long!  Feel free to reach out to us if you have questions about the CMF Gold Mouse awards or if you have ideas about how we can help you get your site it tip-top shape.

Other posts in this series:

• How to Win a Gold Mouse Award, Part I – Where Do You Start?
• How to Win a Gold Mouse Award, Part II – What’s Next?

5. District/State information

Your district pages are another area that don’t require a great deal of upkeep, but they should be informative. Be sure to include information specific to your district and state including demographic information, a map (or interactive map), and local resources that your constituents can use. Rep. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland have very thorough District sections that highlight useful information for residents and visitors to their districts.

6. Accountability

By providing links to your Member’s sponsored and co-sponsored legislation, voting record, and key votes by issue, you are able to highlight your Member’s accomplishments and demonstrate all of the work being done on your constituents’ behalf.  While linking to the THOMAS and Clerk websites covers the first two items, you can also highlight specific votes on your Issue pages to tie everything together.

7. Legislative Process

If you look at your website as an educational resource for your constituents, you’ll be able to think of things that can be added to inform them about the legislative process. Dedicate a page (or more!) to explaining how Congress works. Where does your Member fit in the whole process?  Rep. Silvestre Reyes has a Legislative Information section which is highlighted in the navigation bar. This section provides information about the Legislative Branch, the legislative process, and invites visitors to learn more about the government.

8. Floor Proceedings

While the Member is busy doing work in DC, your constituents are curious about what’s happening. Rep. Mike Ross has a great Issues & Legislation section that breaks down what he is doing in Congress, what’s currently happening in Congress, and how Congress works.  Providing this information lets your constituents know all of the work that is being done while the Member is away from your district.

9. Media Communication

Your press releases are probably updated frequently in your office, but keep in mind that both quality and quantity count.  There are also other kinds of items that fall under the “media” umbrella including other kinds of written releases (i.e. columns and op-ed pieces), video, and audio.  Does your Member have a YouTube account?  Do you have a regular podcast?  If so, you should consider integrating both of these things into your website.

10. Communication Technology and Use of Social Media

Highlighting the Member’s social media accounts on your website is a great way to keep your constituents involved!  Linking your social media accounts on your website and vice versa allows visitors to reach out to the Member in the way that is most comfortable for them. Rep. Lamar Smith’s social media accounts are prominently displayed on the homepage. You’ll also notice that “share” icons are available throughout the site to encourage further interaction with social media. These are both great ways to keep the constituent conversation moving forward.

Other posts in this series:

• How to Win a Gold Mouse Award, Part I – Where Do You Start?

The most important thing to remember about the Gold Mouse Awards is that they aren’t about having a flashy design or a brand new feature that no one else has.  The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is looking for websites that do an outstanding job of communicating with and advocating for constituents.  The bottom line–the Golden Mouse is about CONTENT!

There are four areas of the CMF rating criteria that you can initially focus on when evaluating your website:

1. Usability – How easy is it for visitors to find what they need on your website?

Congressman Geoff Davis was recognized by the CMF for having an easily-navigable website and you can turn to that site for an idea of what great organization looks like. His website’s navigation tools, menu sidebars, and content organization were highlighted for being very user-friendly. We love it when our clients are acknowledged for their great work!

A good way to think about your website’s usability is to put yourself in the position of different members of your audience. 1) If you want to do a search through content on the website, is there a search engine on the site that is easy to find and use?  2) If you’re a constituent who needs information on casework, how many “clicks” does it take to find out what you need and who you should contact to start a case?  3) If you’re a constituent or member of the press who wants to read all of the most recent news items on a specific issue, how easy are they to find?  4) If you have a comment or question for the congressperson, how long does it take to find his out where/how to send them an email?

• What you can do: Since you’re very familiar with the layout and organization of content on your homepage and internal pages, you could even ask a friend or family member to go through and find specific things on your website. Get feedback from someone who is less familiar with your website to see if they can find things quickly or if they can’t find certain things at all! After you’ve evaluated the usability of your website, you can make changes as necessary.  If you realize that there are some very important internal pages to your website that take a lot of “clicks” to find, you may want to feature those links on your homepage in a Quick Links section.  You could also develop a new page on your website that lays out where people can find some specific information that receives a lot of traffic on your website.  The web stats of your website will be very helpful in seeing which pages people seek the most.

2. Timeliness – Is the content on your website up to date?

While it’s usually a concern to keep your Newsroom up to date with press releases and articles, there are other areas that timeliness applies to as well. Issue statements, vote rationales, accomplishments, video, and audio updates are evaluated by the CMF in addition to your news items.

• What you can do: Keeping all of these sections of your website up to date will take a combined effort by staffers in your office. It will likely be overwhelming to consider everything at once, but you can determine which areas need the most work (perhaps your issue statements haven’t been updated for this session of Congress) and start there.  Even quickly checking to see if your THOMAS search box is searching the current Congress will put you on the right path for success in this area.

3. Information on issues – Do you have up-to-date information on current issues?

A lot of visitors to your website will be looking for your Member’s stance on various issues. Does your website include information about the district/state issues that are important to your Member?  Is there information about the work your Member is doing with regard to these issues? According to the CMF, the average Member website scored 3.6 out of 5 upon an evaluation of their issue pages.  Congressman Randy Forbes was recognized by the CMF for demonstrating informative issue pages.  In addition to having up to date issue statements, the Congressman’s website also draws attention to his work on specific issues including relevant letters, sponsored and cosponsored legislation, and votes.

• What you can do: Beefing up your issue pages does take a bit of work, but you already have all of the information at your fingertips–it’s just a matter of gathering relevant information for your visitors to find.  Look through your press releases and files and make sure that you’ve “checked off” which issues they are related to.  Browse through the Member’s vote record to see which votes should be highlighted on various issue pages.  Pulling all of this information together on issue pages helps your visitors see not only your Member’s stance on an issue, but also what is being done to promote that position.

4. Constituent services and casework – Do your constituent services and casework sections have information about the processes involved?

Generally speaking, your Constituent Services and Casework sections aren’t areas that require constant upkeep like some of the other areas of your website, but they shouldn’t be neglected.  They should inform your constituents about how your office can assist them and what happens when they reach out to you.  According to the CMF, nearly 50% of Member websites did not have information on how the casework process works.  This is very easy to remedy!

• What you can do: In order to improve these sections, you could consider the 5 W’s (and an H) we all learn about in school. WHO is visiting your website looking for assistance, WHAT kind of assistance will they need, WHEN can your office intervene and provide help, WHERE should your constituent look for more information, WHY is reaching out to your office a good idea, and HOW does the process work?

Once you go through all of those areas of your website, you’re all done, right?  Not quite, but don’t worry—Fireside21 has you covered.  Be on the lookout for the next two posts in our CMF Gold Mouse series so you can get your website in the race for Gold!  Also, feel free to check out our previous posts on the CMF Gold Mouse awards.

Highlight Social Media and Other Communication

Social media integration is a great way to share information with constituents and receive feedback on important issues. Implementing Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube feeds into a website allows constituents to keep up-to-date with the ways their Representative is working for them. Maintaining social media accounts also allows for fast updates that target a variety of demographics. Rep. David Scott’s redesign prominently displays his social media accounts, E-Newsletter signup and contact information on his homepage for easy access. These forms of communication encourage constituents to stay in touch.

Ensure a User-Friendly Website

The goal of every Congressional website is to provide information for constituents in the most effective way. This can include accessibility features like font sizing options, streamlined navigation and content organization strategies. Considering the way constituents seek information on your website is an important part of the redesign process. By reducing the number of “clicks” required to find relevant information on your website, you help constituents access what they need more quickly. These features work together to make a constituent’s visit to your website as helpful as possible.

Call Attention to Issues and Features

With the ability to view your website’s analytics in Fireside Web, it is very easy to see which pages are the most popular with your constituents. A redesign may include ways to make important issues more prominently featured on your website. Website features can also be promoted to encourage constituent participation. Rep. John Boehner’s recent redesign calls attention to his Constituent Mailbag by adding it to a feature section on his homepage. This strategy can be used to highlight a number of features that may be beneficial to constituents.

As we mentioned in our recent security post, you need to be on the House network to access your account, but you don’t physically need to be on the Hill to connect.

The House provides a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service that when combined with an HIR-provided SecurID allows you to securely connect to the House network from anywhere. If you don’t already have a SecurID, you will need to fill out a form on this HouseNet page.

By the way, this iPhone screenshot is real. There is a built-in VPN on all iPhones…and here’s a trick to take screenshots: press the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time and you’ll find a screenshot in your photo library.

I don’t know for sure exactly how these sites got hacked—I would just be speculating without conducting an audit of server logs. I do want to take this opportunity to re-assure our clients of things we do at Fireside21 to protect our client’s web site and constituent data.

Our system is safer for several reasons:

1. Our web servers run the latest software and have anti-hacking protection built-in.
2. We write our own software and adhere to the best practices for handing anonymous input.
3. All our administrative functions are limited to the house network, which means hackers have to breach the house firewall before they can even try to access our admin servers.
4. All administrative logins are encrypted with the same technology used by banks and online stores.
5. We lock accounts that enter too many bad passwords, making it hard for hackers to try and guess your password.

One thing I recommend for everyone is to be careful with your usernames and passwords. Pick a complex password, change it often, and don’t let anyone know what it is!

I also recently chatted with Clay Johnson from Sunlight Labs to discuss similar topics.  We are really big fans of the work that all of the “open government” community is doing and can tell with all our clients that everyone has turned the corner on transparency.  Instead of Congressional staffers asking “why,” they are more frequently asking “how.”

So what does all this mean?  And what can you do differently?  Well first off, offices need to decide if they want to adopt transparency or maintain the status quo.  From there, it’s really just technical details about publishing data like votes, requests and news in a “structured” data format.  In fact, all of our clients have RSS feeds for their news content and that’s all it takes to get started!

Here’s another example: one of the recent changes to House rules is requiring offices to publish their appropriation requests on their web site.  This caught a lot of people off guard, so if you are not sure what you need to do or how to do it, please give us a call!

What a missed opportunity!

Offices spend a lot of money to acquire email addresses and a lot of time to build up trust with those constituent to eventually get a formal opt-in.  Here was a missed opportunity to capture hundreds and maybe thousands of new email subscribers in just a couple of days and for free!

Many of our clients utilize Fireside Web and Email’s survey tools to help out when key votes are coming to the floor.  These surveys quickly aggregate opinions that can be reported to the Congressman.  Here’s how:

1. Have an internal discussion of how you want to phrase the survey.  Just ask a yes or no question?  Potentially ask the constituent a series of questions like, “which of the following components or amendments do you support?”
2. Publish the survey on your web site, feature it on your homepage and send out an email alert to your constituents asking for their feedback.
3. Additionally, send the link around to your staff list with a script and instructions to collect the information over the phone.
4. When the calls start to hit, your staff can take constituents’ information over the phone and enter it into the web site survey.

Here is a sample script:

Thank you for calling with your concerns on this issue.  First, do you support or oppose the bill?  Okay, please let me know if you support any of the following provisions…

Thanks again for your feedback.  Would you like to receive a response from the Congressman on this issue?

[Collect name, email and address]

Would you like to receive email alerts on this and other important topics from the Congressman?

[Collect email, check the subscribe box]

This tactic is going to yield your office a lot of new opt-ins and it also greatly simplifies the data entry for staffers.  I know that sometime when there are a lot of calls, some constituents’ opinions don’t get recorded at all.

Be sure your office doesn’t miss out on this opportunity in the future!

IN THE NEWS

Perhaps the biggest news of the year was our departure from the Adfero Group.  I know we will continue to have strong ties to all of our former colleagues at Adfero, but we’re excited about the focused mission of Fireside21.

Along with the launch of Fireside21, we re-branded all of our Web-based software tools:

• Fireside Web™ continues to be the gold standard for Congressional Web site design and content management.  Recent surges in traffic only served as a reminder of the benefits of Fireside Web™. Also, as we have promised, we’ve continued to add new features and functionality to this industry-leading platform.

• Fireside Email™ has also received attention from our development team to establish this email newsletter system as second to none.  We’re excited to be helping our clients communicate more effectively with our integrated approach.

• Fireside CRM™ gained preliminary approval from the CAO and will be entering into the Beta phase early in 2009.  Advances in software technologies have been slow to reach the Hill and we are excited about this new service and the potential it offers to all of Capitol Hill.

We were also proud to show off our creative skills in helping the office of Rep. Mike Roger’s announce and promote his Energy Independence Plan.

A welcome announcement came from the House Committee on Adminstration to finally relax the rules related to third party/Web 2.0 services.  Many offices had been ingoring the rules anyways and we expect services like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to gain wider adoption as tools to communicate with constituents.

THE FUTURE

There’s no time to rest in 2009.  As when the new Congress kicks-off, we anticipate launching many Web sites for new members of the House.

We also anticipate launching user interface enhancement that will guarantee that all our software services continue to offer the best balance between ease of use and advanced functionality among Congressional vendors.