Blog

Good news for all future rulemaking and those who follow it: the Federal Register is revamping its web presence. This redesign is the winning submission to the Apps for America 2 contest held in conjunction with the Sunlight Foundation. You can read about the background over at the Federal Eye (a Washington Post blog on government affairs written by journalist Ed O'Keefe).

The old website design is currently still up at the Register's existing web address, http://www.ofr.gov/. The Federal Register has been online since 1994, and is making the transition to this new look and feel in honor of its 75th anniversary. After five months of work and $275,000 spent (see today's Washington Post article), this new site is open to public viewing at http://www.federalregister.gov/. The following YouTube clip highlights the design process and new features of the online Federal Register:

The best improvement I saw at first glance was when clicking on an individual day's publication. At the old site you'd have to scroll through a list of government agencies listed in all caps (difficult to read) in order to find appropriate rule PDFs. With the new design, the agencies are broken up in an easier to skim format, with divisions for rules and notices, as well as a right hand menu that will take you straight to the department you're interested in (with a count of how many items are in that section). There's an added blessing for those of us writing about federal rules: each rule now has its own portal, complete with an easy-to-link shortened url. There are also share buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Digg.

The Federal Register has created a PowerPoint exploring these and other new features. Also, this new site will lend itself toward apps creation (doesn't everything now?) There's a comment period open right now to garner feedback for the redesign, which won't become official until "the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register issues a regulation granting it official legal status," (OFR Announcement).

Check it out.

share this article email twitter facebook stumbleupon digg