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The Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) uses theories, research, and methods from the social and behavioral sciences to address and solve challenges faced by the public. Team members come from a variety of backgrounds, including economics, psychology, and political science.

For government agencies, connecting users to information is a critical part of meeting the public’s needs and delivering excellent customer service. DigitalGov Search helps agencies deliver information to government searchers on every level—federal, state, local, and tribal. Recently, search analyst Dawn McCleskey sat down to discuss the work of DigitalGov Search, including: What DigitalGov Search does How working with search is a natural fit for librarians Why the government needs a homegrown search service The challenges of managing a search service for 2,500 websites Future directions for DigitalGov Search Why you can’t find everything online (like searching for Ben Franklin’s jet pack!)

You cannot improve your digital outreach without data. Since 2012, the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) has provided agencies the critical information and metrics that they need to make their public-facing websites better. The buzz around DAP has grown with the release of the Digital Analytics Dashboard, which provides a real-time glimpse into government Web traffic, and Pulse, a dashboard showing the percentage of agencies that have implemented DAP. Both dashboards rely on DAP data to inform the public about government Web activities.

​DigitalGov University has added podcasts to our suite of offerings on DigitalGov, featuring interviews and discussions with leaders in the DigitalGov community. For the first edition, we talked to Diane ​Devera, “Voice of the IVR” for the USA.gov Contact Center. In this 10 minute discussion with Jacob Parcell, Manager of Mobile Programs, Devera discusses several considerations about interactive voice response (IVR) for federal contact centers, including: - Why are IVRs important for government contact centers? - What are current trends for IVRs? - What does the 1-844-USA-GOV1 team have in store for the future of its IVR?

To provide great customer service, bring your agency’s customers to the table. This is one of many insights recently offered by Stephanie Thum, Vice President of Customer Experience at the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Thum has previously written about customer experience for DigitalGov, including Three Ways to Evolve Your Agency’s Customer Mindset and the forward-looking Will 2016 Be the Federal Government’s ‘Year of the Customer?’ In May, Thum sat down with DigitalGov to dig deeper into the federal customer experience (CX) landscape. Thum discussed how the CX mindset is gaining momentum and attention around government, how CX is a management discipline that deserves a seat at the C-suite, and why providing great customer service makes fundamental business sense.

The Central Intelligence Agency launched their Twitter account with the second most retweeted inaugural post in the platform’s history: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” Now for the first time, on the DigitalGov podcast, learn from the CIA itself the best practices behind one of the most high-profile social media accounts in both the public and private sector.