President Obama Orders Government Agencies To Optimize Websites For Mobile Web Accessibility

President Barack Obama on Wednesday issued a directive that requires all major government agencies to make two of their key services available on mobile phones within the year. The President then ordered those agencies to create websites to report on their mobile progress, sites that are due within 90 days.

In address the mobile optimization issues surrounding governmental websites President Obama said “it is time for the federal government to do more. For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across different government programs in order to find the services they need.”

As President Obama points out in the memo, some services are poorly optimized while other services simply fail to work all together on smartphones, tablets and other portable devices. In the statement the President continued:

“Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device. By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed.”

According to to the President’s release, by 2015 there will be more people in the United States accessing the web through mobile phones than through desktop computers.

To prepare for the conversion to mobile accessibility President Obama has paced U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel in charge of creating a comprehensive mobile road map.

President Obama also announced the Presidential Innovation Fellows program which brings outside innovators to Washington D.C. where they can work with governmental officials on new technology projects including open data initiatives and health records.