1. EPA Web Procedures and Standards October 26, 2010

2. How to Find Them EPA’s Web Guide http://www.epa.gov/webguide/

4. EPA Web Procedures Ensuring Access to EPA Information on EPA Servers http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/standards- guidance/epa-servers Protecting Content during Web Site Development http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/standards- guidance/protect-dev-sites

5. EPA Web Procedures External Site Links http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/standards- guidance/external-links Complying with epa.gov “Look and Feel” http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/standards- guidance/look-feel

6. External Links Do not add an exit tag to other federal government web sites. Use the common code in the procedure. Do not create your own exit tag or a local copy of the image. Check your links quarterly, per OMB policy, to be sure that: –They are still active and not broken. –The page being linked to has not been replaced with something inappropriate. –Easy fix – check maxamine QA reports monthly for broken links and inappropriate links.

7. Do not add exit tag to other federal Web sites example

8. Complying with epa.gov “Look and Feel” http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/ Template 4 is for: –New sites –Sites who have talked with OEA and gotten approval to go through the redesign process. http://www.epa.gov/productreview/guide/pdev.html#web http://www.epa.gov/productreview/guide/pdev.html#web

9. Complying with epa.gov “Look and Feel” You can update your site in Template 3.2.1 –Add new content as needed –Treat your ROT Verify and republish existing content Update/rewrite outdated but still useful content Outdated content that still provides useful info gets disclaimer Remove obsolete content

10. Search Problem: –Setting up Search for an area using Template 3.2.1 –Search fails Resolution: –We’ve removed area search from the templates Implement poorly Users didn’t know what an area was and were searching a limited set of content Template team and search team believe that when you search, regardless of page, should get the same results –If using an older template, check your search parameters

12. Search cont. Problem: Overarching homepage does not include subareas in search Example: Water shouldn’t just search the area for it but also OWOW, OGWDW, OST, OWM Resolution: If you’re responsible for an overarching subject homepage, check that the search is looking across all the websites that are related.

13. Standards: Common Errors

14. Contact Us Page Contact Us Page. Requires a link to a separate page with contact information. The problem: –The template just has a # sign in the code. The contact us link isn’t added. The link doesn’t work. –People go to a working page and use the wrong contact us link. –Questions are not sent to the content managers. Solution: –Create a Contact US page. –Update the link to the page in the two places in the template.

15. Contact Us Page Problem: Form requires an e-mail address. There’s a requirement that people can submit information anonymously. Solution: Don’t make the e-mail address field required To avoid spam: Use the type in a word to submit option. http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/s/forms.html People do have to provide an e-mail address if they want to get a response.

16. PDF Linking The words matter. Helps people know what they’re going to get when they click on link. Helps search engines –Link text counts as text in the target document. In fact, "Keyword- focused anchor text from external links" is the single most important factor in relevance calculations. – Peter Buch, EPA searchmaster

17. Examples What NOT to do: –Title changed to protect the guilty. Brochure 8 pp, 2.1MB –Title changed to protect the guilty. PDF (24pp. 890K) What TO DO: –Title of document (PDF) (24pp. 890K) –Title of document (PDF) (8pp. 2.1MB) It’s OK to repeat the title twice, if you have two formats. –Title of document (Word) (8pp. 200K) –Title of document (PDF) (8pp. 2.1MB)

18. Graphic File Size Problem: posting a large image and controlling size by setting width and height. –Customers have to download large images. –Images largest source of download burden. Slow to load pages can blame images most of the time. Solution: Resize the graphic file in a graphic program. –Compress as much as possible without degrading quality.

19. New Icon Functionality is now part of EPA’s mother javascript. Directions to use are part of the new icon standard. http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/standards- guidance/newicon

20. JavaScript Used to enhance Don’t provide content using JavaScript http://www.epa.gov/athens/allresearch.html http://www.epa.gov/athens/allresearch.html Content or HTML elements that only make sense with JavaScript available must be created by JavaScript

21. At EPA that means 59,080 requests/day from people with JavaScript turned off –September’s average successful requests for pages per day: 2,954,007 –2% average US browsers have JavaScript turned off (Estimate from Yahoo!) –FYI: the US had the highest rate of users with JS turned off

22. Example with JavaScript

23. Example Without JavaScript

24. Contact: Judy Dew dew.judy@epa.gov Office content/infrastructure coordinators http://www.epa.gov/webgovernance/leadership.html