Memorandum: Improving EPA's
Web Site
| DATE: |
January 11, 2002
|
| TO: |
Assistant Administrators
General Counsel
Inspector General
Chief Financial Officer
Associate Administrators
Regional Administrators
Staff Office Directors |
EPA's web site is now the Agency's most effective communication
medium, providing information to the public and other external
stakeholders 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, our site
presents many different "faces" of the Agency to our
visitors. With as many as 300 distinct sites, these differences
often make it difficult for visitors to find the information they
need or perform the tasks they need to accomplish. Inconsistencies
also dilute the Agency's brand recognition.
I have identified two initiatives to help resolve these issues,
and I am anxious that these changes be implemented as quickly
as possible. To that end, it is essential that you dedicate the
resources necessary to complete these tasks. In particular, it
may be necessary to strengthen your communications and public
affairs staff to perform the cross-agency coordination and content
review aspects of this work.
1. Reviewing and Redesigning the EPA Web Site
The Office of Communications and the Office of Environmental Information
have created a new design that will be used across the entire
current web site including all office and regional pages. To benefit
from this new look, please convert your top-level pages (e.g.,
regional and office home pages) to this new design by January
2002 and convert all other Web materials by June 2002. As you
implement the new design, also review your web materials for consistency
with EPA web policies (e.g., privacy and external links) as well
as remove outdated and otherwise unnecessary information. The
Office of Communications and the Office of Environmental Information
have developed guidance for this process and conducted training
sessions at the EPA Web Workgroup meeting on December 11-12, 2001.
2. Organizing Our Information by Topic
Currently, much of our web site is managed according to the structure
of individual offices and regions. This causes several problems:
(1) unnecessary duplication of effort; (2) inconsistent or incomplete
information; and (3) difficulty in finding information because
most of our visitors do not know the Agency's organizational structure.
Managing and presenting information by environmental topics will
alleviate these problems. Moving to this topics-based approach
will require extensive and regular cross-agency coordination.
In many ways, this is a new way of doing business, but I believe
that breaking down the "silos" that exist in the Agency
will enable us to communicate EPA's important messages more effectively.
I have asked the Office of Communications and the Office of Environmental
Information to present an implementation plan to me by April 2002.
They will rely on your offices, the Quality Information Council,
and the Web Workgroup to develop the plan. Additional information
will be provided as this initiative progresses.
I deeply appreciate the cooperative and collegial manner in which
many employees are working together to create our new web site.
Building on this high level of energy and collaboration will make
it one of the top government sites in the nation.
For more information about these initiatives and their implementation,
please contact Thomas Basile, Director of Communications, or Elaine
Stanley, Director of OEI's Office of Information Analysis and
Access. Guidance documents and materials are available in EPA's
Web Guide http://www.epa.gov/webguide/.
/s/
Christine Todd Whitman
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