Associate Professor Advises Federal Government on Making Data More Accessible

Clio Andris sees it far too often. Government research data that should take her students 10 minutes to access for their projects often takes an hour.

As an associate professor jointly appointed in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing and School of City & Regional Planning, Andris relies on government data for her research, so slowdowns like this can be more than inconvenient. They can also hinder scientific discovery.

The problem is that many government websites that host the data aren’t user-friendly. These data sources are complex and voluminous, and the search engines are inefficient at narrowing down what users are seeking.

“It kind of has a ‘last mile’ problem,” Andris said. “Government workers and geospatial data workers have spent so much time and money creating these data sources. They’ve kept such great records year after year, but then that last mile is, how do we get it to people?”

Andris advised the federal government on this challenge while serving on the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). The committee was formed by the Department of the Interior under the Geospatial Data Act of 2018, which established a new system for how the federal government collects, manages, and shares geospatial data.

Andris rotated off the committee in 2025 but led a report released in March 2026 titled Improving the Digital Experience for Users of National Geospatial Data. In the report, Andris and her collaborators outline recommendations for making geospatial data easy to retrieve and download. 

These recommendations were intended for government agencies with websites that feature maps and segment data by geographic region. These agencies included the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and NASA. 

“The NGAC hadn’t focused yet on the way that users are interfacing with these sites, but it’s in our best interest to study it,” Andris said.

Andris and her co-authors on the report focused on five key areas for improvement:

• Provide clear navigation signposts that allow users to access data in as few clicks as possible
• Display key statistics so users know how large a file is and how many times it’s been downloaded
• Provide thumbnail previews of the data files
• Add forums for comments, discussion, and engagement
• Create user typologies to understand who is accessing the data

One glaring crack in the system Andris found was the frequency with which drop-down menus didn’t immediately take the user to the data or let them download it.

“When users click on something that says data, they should be able to get data,” she said. “It’s like going to a vending machine and having it ask if you’d like to learn more about vending machines instead of giving you what you want.” 

Andris said users should also be able to know as much as possible about a file before downloading it.

“People are used to seeing reviews and ratings on sites like Amazon to get a sense of how many people are using a product,” she said. “In that respect, we think people should be given more metrics on how many downloads the data they are seeking has. 

“They should be able to see the metadata—including the file size so they can know how much space it will take up before downloading. They should also know the file type and whether they can open it in their software.”

Andris said there’s wisdom in emulating how private companies design their websites.

“Retail sites have conditioned people to expect things to be easy. They get what they want in one click. If they don’t find what they’re looking for almost immediately, they might give up. Adopting some of these practices from industry would probably be a good idea.”

For more information about the NGAC, visit https://www.fgdc.gov/ngac/. For the full report written by Andris, click here.