The mission of the U.S. State Department is “[t]o protect and promote U.S. security, prosperity, and democratic values and shape an international environment in which all Americans can thrive.” As the federal government’s only agency whose sole focus is diplomacy and foreign affairs, the State Department is the face our nation presents to the world, working to further peace efforts around the globe. With 270 embassies and other diplomatic posts worldwide, the State Department also is a first point of contact for Americans needing assistance abroad.
Snapshot
| Agency Partner | Huge, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Role | Technical Architect |
| URL | https://state.gov/ |
The Problem
The State Department’s website was a relic from the Clinton administration, with a proprietary CMS that was difficult for personnel to update, and for visitors to find the important information that they were looking for. Huge, Inc. was brought in to modernize the website and to move it onto the popular and well-supported WordPress platform. WordPress was already the CMS of choice for the websites of the State Department’s embassies around the world, so it was a logical choice that the flagship site would be powered by it as well.
The Process
Huge assembled a team of designers and engineers from around the country. I was brought on specifically for this project as a WordPress expert (and former State Department intern) to lead the engineering team which consisted of two front-end engineers, a back-end engineer (in addition to myself), and two quality assurance engineers. We all worked remotely from our homes in New York, Maryland, Georgia, and California, and kept in constant contact through Slack and daily stand ups.
For this complex website which had to convey lots of information about the United States relations with countries all around the globe, the design team worked in sprints to go through the website section by section, with the engineering team working in sprints to implement the designs finalized in the previous design sprint. Once features had been designed and implemented, State Department personnel worked to migrate content from the legacy system to the new WordPress website.
The Results
The finished state.gov website presents a polished, modern portal where visitors to the site can easily find information about every nation with which the United States has diplomatic relations, as well as key officials such as the Secretary of State. The website is responsive and Section 508 compliant for accessibility.
Information is organized in a variety of ways to meet the varying needs of those coming to it, including by policy area, by country of the world, and by the internal organization of bureaus and offices.