The Office of Web Communications within the Office of Public Affairs provides support services to help those who are creating and editing content on DHS public websites. These services enable timely and accurate information to be published efficiently and consistently in support of the Department's mission.
Mission Statement
To make sure that the information the public is looking for online is easy to find, easy to read, and easy to act upon, we use web communications as a strategic business and communications asset, providing constant and iterative improvement to the website while promoting a “public first” focus for web content.
Web Communications is responsible for the overall strategy, structure, organization, and presentation of DHS websites (especially DHS.gov) and overall content guidance for all Department web properties. DHS Web Communications is the final interpreter of the DHS web style.
High level responsibilities include:
- Provide counsel on strategic web communications
- Organization
- Manage and coordinate content
- Top-level navigational structure
- Section-level navigational structure (where your content fits in)
- Cross-linking strategies
- Editorial oversight for DHS.gov
- Development of policies, standards, and guidelines
- Guidelines for web style
- Guidelines for web branding
- Templates
- Publishing services to DHS.gov
- Domain name advice and approvals
- Compliance with web-related laws, guidance, instructions, and best practices.
The Director of Web Communications coordinates editorial standards, workflows, roles, processes, and requirements for DHS websites with input from DHS's web governance bodies. The director also serves as chair of the DHS Enterprise Web Council. The DHS Enterprise Web Council is made up of one public affairs representative and one technology (IT) representative from each of the DHS operational components.
The purpose of the DHS Enterprise Web Council is to:
- Unify and simplify web systems at DHS by consolidating component sites, integrating stove-piped programmatic sites and eliminating duplicative sites.
- Identify and promote best practices for effective, customer-focused web-content management throughout the Department.
- Identify and research new technology and propose pilot tests to evaluate their possible adoption by the department.
- Provide a forum for web managers to share skills, knowledge, best practices, ideas and solutions.
- Provide DHS leadership with an accurate accounting of the scope of all component public-facing websites and the technology and resources supporting them, along with financial and operational transparencies, including usage metrics.
- Provide DHS a cross-component forum to address high-level web policy issues that affect all DHS components.
- Promote cross-agency collaboration through information and resource sharing.
- Communicate our successes and challenges to stakeholders, to bring greater recognition and support for our work and the DHS web community as a whole.