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Category: Congress

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Reaching a Web Traffic Milestone on Congress.gov

Posted by: Andrew Weber

The following is a guest post by Natalie Buda Smith, user experience team supervisor at the Library of Congress. In recent blog posts, we shared how we continuously conduct usability testing and regularly release enhancements to make Congress.gov easier to use and search. We also use data analytics to understand website traffic, by monitoring visits, …

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Testing and Enhancing Congress.gov

Posted by: Andrew Weber

The following is a guest post by Jill MacNeice, an information architect at the Library of Congress. We are constantly working to improve Congress.gov, and regularly conduct usability testing on the site as part of this effort. We recently looked at the variety of ways in which you search the site. Congress.gov has many searches, …

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Ratification Anniversary

Posted by: Margaret Wood

I frequently suspect that my nearest and dearest sometimes heave a sigh when they see me coming. Although I can always be relied upon to provide some delectable baked goods, I can also be relied upon to hijack the conversation and natter on about some obscure date in history or some arcane legislative procedure.  And …

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The Presidential Seal

Posted by: Margaret Wood

A little more than a year ago, I wrote about our national bird, the eagle. The eagle appears on the United States Great Seal and the post briefly discussed the design process for that seal under the Continental Congress.    The process spanned over 6 years, involved three separate, specially appointed congressional committees, and an …

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A Congress.gov Interview with Fred Simonton, Information Technology Specialist

Posted by: Andrew Weber

This week’s interview is with Fred Simonton, an information technology specialist in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Describe your background. Born in Vermont, I grew up in Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, surrounded by and participating in the arts with a decided preference for music and drawing. In my college years …

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The Congress.gov Top 16 in 2016

Posted by: Andrew Weber

This has been an exciting year working on Congress.gov.  In April we announced that THOMAS would be retired on July 5, which is when we officially pulled the plug.  Congress.gov matured over the year with new advanced ways to search the system and a variety of email alerts for tracking what is happening in Congress. We …

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Congress.gov Homepage Highlights, Alerts, and More Enhancements

Posted by: Andrew Weber

This has been an exciting and successful year for Congress.gov.  We accomplished a major milestone when we retired THOMAS in July.  Over the course of 2016, we completed a number of enhancements to Congress.gov.  In April we expanded quick search to include the Congressional Record, Committee Reports, Nominations, Treaty Documents, and Communications. In May we launched several new RSS feeds and …