What's on people's minds?

You told us what you wanted, and we listened. USA.gov has answered the call for an even better website with a new, exciting look.

You'll still find all the same useful information as in the last version of USA.gov. But what you'll notice is a cleaner design and layout, and many improvements to help you find your way around...

Now it's even easier to find government information and services.

Here's how—we:

* reduced page clutter by having less content on each page and adding more pages;
* added images to our News and Features boxes to focus on those features and communicate what each story is about;
* made GobiernoUSA.gov more useful by editing the language specifically for the Latino community, and using different colors based on feedback from Spanish speakers;
* highlighted audience groups to make them more visible;
* merged the "Federal Employees" and "Government to Government" sections into "Government Employees" to increase understanding and use; and,
* formatted our text and language to meet specific audience needs and improve design and usability.

We've also added some great new features:

* Now it's simple for people to change the text size on every page.
* We've grouped special page functions like "e-mail this page to a friend," "print this page," and "receive updates to this page by e-mail."
* We added a date to the bottom of each page so you can see the last time we reviewed or updated the page content.
* We added buttons to switch between our English and Spanish websites.
* We're now offering RSS feeds in Spanish.
* Our search engine has new features:
o Local weather forecasts by the National Weather Service. Search for weather from the National Weather Service by entering a city/state combination or adding a weather-related keyword (like weather or forecast) to your city search. You will see a multi-day forecast for your local area as a well as a link to view the full forecast at the National Weather Service web site.
o FAQ's integrated into search returns. If your query matches entries in the FAQ databases for USA.gov, Social Security Administration, HUD, IRS, FEMA, or Treasury, the question will appear at the top of the search results. We plan to add dozens more databases in the future. The USA.gov FAQ database contains the most popular questions asked by citizens via the Federal Citizen Information Center's national contact center at 1 (800) FED-INFO. Click on a question link and get a detailed, authoritative answer.
o House and Senate "spotlight" feature. When you search for your Senator or Representative, you will see a special spotlight feature at the top of the search results that includes contact information, voting records, and other helpful links about your Senator or Representative.

We're increasing recognition that we're the official U.S. government web portal.

* used colors to distinguish USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov pages from other government websites;
* increased the size of, and centered our site name and logo;
* made our government search more prominent to highlight our improved search functions; and,
* added visual cues to make it even clearer that USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov are official U.S. government sites:
o used a crisper, brighter picture of the U.S. flag on our pages;
o added the official Great Seal of the U.S. government in the banner;
o included a photo and link of the White House in the footer; and,
o maintained the use of red, white, and blue.