Category: Content

Government websites and the cautionary tale of the Library of Babel

We often visit a local government website for a simple purpose: find street sweeping hours, pay a parking ticket. Instead of clarity, we’re met with a labyrinth of links, random information, and dead-end pages. The Library of Babel is a 1940s absurdist short story about overwhelming knowledge and the search for something meaningful. Its author, … Continued

The elephant in the new accessibility law: PDFs

Local government agencies need to soon comply with a new federal web accessibility law. This includes making sure documents, like PDFs, are accessible. If your government agency is typical, you have a lot of PDFs. Probably thousands. They are probably not accessible. It’s expensive to make PDFs accessible through remediation services. The underlying goal of … Continued

Government content during disasters

Written in partnership with ProudCity. Communication is critical to emergency management. When disaster strikes, government must share content in ways that meet the moment. Why it matters Effective disaster communications: Lets you update faster, frequently Builds trust in government Removes confusion Keeps people safe How they get it People get disaster updates from many sources: … Continued

Clear and approachable local election content for candidates

There’s a big election in November. While the news focuses on the presidential election, you most likely have local ballot measures and open seats on your City Council. Our communities are stronger when more people run for local office. But getting people interested in running for City Council can be hard. The process can feel … Continued

How AI can help you stop wasting everyone’s time

Most people learn about your government services and programs online. They don’t typically start on your homepage – they start with a Google search. This now means, they start with Gemini. AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are answering questions about your services. Are they getting them right? This depends on how good your … Continued

Plain language writing is a skill, and most governments don’t do it well

Information on your government website is the foundation of your customer service. If it’s easy to understand and accurate, you’ll save time and build trust. Government website projects typically focus on a new content management system and a new design. Content is often an afterthought. Departments are usually left on their own to manage the … Continued

Training: How to write better government content

Clear communications – for internal or public consumption – is at the heart of good government. Writing better content eliminates confusion, saves time and resources and delivers a better overall government experience. Department of Civic Things and ProudCity are proud to collaborate on new training to support local governments in plain language, both for online … Continued

How to write business license renewal website content

It’s that time of year again – business license renewals. If your renewal cycle is based on the calendar year, you are probably sending out reminders to hundreds or thousands of business owners right now. There’s usually quite a bit of customer service involved in this program. Business owners often: Get confused about what they … Continued

Try our custom ChatGPT to write government services content

We created a custom ChatGPT called Service Thing. It helps you write government services content that focuses on tasks and is easy to understand. Service Thing You can also use the guidance in our last post about using AI to help write content for a government service. Let us know if this helps you! We … Continued

How to use AI to write content for a government service

Generative AI can create content based on patterns it has learned from existing data. A prompt for generative AI is a set of instructions that tells it what kind of content to create. This post explains the steps for preparing a generative AI prompt you can use to create draft government service content. An action … Continued

Close window