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Webpage Design: Map of Docket Sites

I supported the US EPA for over 10 years as an IT contractor, helping them plan, build, and maintain websites and applications. The US EPA, like all government agencies, has a strict and well-defined style guide for webpages and applications. Our customers, EPA employees, would ask us to create unique designs that stood out but still followed the official guidelines.

Here is one example of my work (Map of Docket Sites). The page contains a left side navigation bar with distinct colors and icons, while the rest of the page follows the EPA style guidelines.

Application Design: Climate Adpatation Search

A policy analyst within the US EPA requested a new tool to collect and search climate adaptation content. He wanted a tool with specific info that would help city planners prepare for the future, and he wanted the results refined by multiple categories and options. I met with the customer to gather the requirements, and then I brainstormed with our developers.

A big problem at the time was the immense cost and time requirements of making a new application at US EPA, so we explored a workaround to use simpler code that would deliver the results the customer needed while keeping costs low. We used datatables and our developer extended it (heavily, he was a rockstar coder) to act more like an application. The result was a single webpage that included all the content in a long table that was hidden from the general user. From a user’s point of view, it acted like a regular, quick application, and behind the scenes we avoided the costs and delays of a full-fledged application.

The customer was extremely happy, and he shared the tool and its code with multiple organizations around the world.

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