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Many links on the Web Guide are available to EPA Intranet users only. If you are an outside contractor working for EPA, please contact your EPA representative for more information. If you are another federal agency or other party interested in EPA's web policies and procedures, please contact EPA through the "Contact Us" page on this site.
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Intranet Publishing Guidelines: Style/Markup
Look and Feel
Required and Optional Elements for All Intranet Pages at all levels of EPA Intranets
Although EPA has only one look and feel for the Internet site, we have many different Intranets that have different presentations. The pages comprising these Intranets will be targeted at different subsets of the EPA internal audience e.g. HQ, Agency-wide, Cincinnati, Regional, Laboratory and Office of Water staff.
While EPA's Intranets may actually be physically separate Intranets, these Intranets will begin to appear to EPA staff as a single, logical Intranet information entity by the use of html links and the search engine. Pages on each Intranet will routinely direct users to pages from other Intranets. The Agency Intranet Search Engine allows EPA to create an index to all information on any Agency Intranet server.
EPA's Intranet users may "arrive" at an Intranet page within any of these different EPA Intranets by navigating through links or after having run a "Search." Particularly when the customer arrives at the page from a "search," the Intranet page needs to provide enough information for the user to understand the purpose and source of the page, and for whom the page is intended, and how to return to the relevant Intranet home page.
Definitions
EPA@Work: EPA@Work is the Agency-wide Intranet for EPA employees.
EPA@Work contains, or points to, information which is potentially relevant to staff at many locations or offices across the Agency.
Location Intranet: A location Intranet is Intranet information targeted at the employees of a specific Agency location. The Headquarters Intranet or the Region 3 Infonet are location Intranets. A location Intranet may physically be on a separate Web server at that location or it could be housed on a server at the National Computer Center. Location Intranet resources can be purchased through the Working Capital Fund and allow a location to focus on the content of the site-not on the mechanics of running a Web server.
Program/Local/Regional/Laboratory Intranet Site: A program office or even a division could have an independently managed Intranet site which would provide information to staff members of that organization. In general, a local Intranet site would contain information targeted at internal staff of an organization. For instance, an Office of Water local Intranet site would contain information only for Office of Water Employees. This local Intranet would probably not contain information that the Office of Water wanted to make available to other Agency staff. That information would be on EPA@Work, so it can be integrated with the rest of the Agency's general information and the search and browse features.
HQ Intranet: The HQ Intranet is the location Intranet site, maintained by OEI, which provides information targeted to Headquarters employees.
Logical Web Site: A logical Web site is a collection of Intranet information which has been prepared to appear as one piece to Web users, although the resources may be drawn from different pages or sites. An Intranet, like EPA@Work, contains many "logical Web Sites." A logical Web site will begin at a top level page and include information stored beneath that page. A logical Web site can also include information linked from elsewhere in the site.
Target Audience: The "target audience" is the group of EPA employees for whom the Information on a given Web page is appropriate. For instance, Headquarters is the target audience for a page on which describes "how to arrange for conference calls at Headquarters."
Logical Web Site Logo: Often a logical Web Site, as defined above, will have a characteristic look and feel or graphic presentation which is used to identify material as belonging to that site.
Navigating "Up": Many Web sites are composed of a logical hierarchy of pages, with the lower pages providing more specific information and the higher level pages providing the broader context and interrelationships of the information within the Web site. Navigating "up" allows the user to go up either to the next page logically above the current page or to the home page for the that logical Web site.
Search: EPA uses the Northern Light search engine to index the full text of all documents on EPA's Intranets. This search engine allows Web customers to search using words, URLs, metadata, etc., across Intranets indexed by the search engine. Use of a search engine means that Intranet customers often find their way to a Web page by conducting a search rather than by navigating through links from higher level to lower level pages.
Policy
When looking at any Intranet page, the user should be able to tell :
- that the page is an EPA Intranet page
- who the targeted customers for the page are (all EPA employees, HQ only, Region only, specific program office, etc.)
- what EPA organization created the page when the page was last updated
- how to navigate up from that page to other related pages
- how to ask for help or provide feedback about the page
These goals can be met by including the following elements and standard navigation
items on all Intranet pages.
Standard Elements
Top Elements
- EPA: Identify that the page has been created within EPA by using the words "EPA" or "Environmental Protection Agency" or a clearly recognizable EPA logo. The following link provides examples of logos that can be used:
EPA Seals and Logos
- Required Page Elements
Title: Each page/document should have a title element that is often used in lists of search results and bookmarks. If the title is inaccurate or missing, users will have difficulty finding your page. The title should be meaningful and unique to each page.
Each Web page or other object should have a title. For HTML pages, the title is created by the use of the html page element <title>. PDF files should follow EPA Portable Document Format (PDF) Standards
a) Logos: a graphic element which is used to identify a specific "site." The following link provides EPA@Work logos: http://intranet.epa.gov/agcyintr/images/index1.htm
If the information is of Agency-wide relevance and is provided through EPA@Work, the EPA@Work logo can be used to clarify the page as being of Agency-wide relevance as well as providing the required EPA identification.
b) Headers: Headers should duplicate the content of the title field.
Either a logo or header, or both, should appear on your pages in addition to the title element.
Bottom Elements
- URL: This allows the user to identify the actual location of the page. If users have arrived via a search engine, this is one convenient way to identify the page.
- Date Last Updated: (If you review a page and find that it is still current and requires no change, it is useful to add a "Date last reviewed":)
- Data-Provider Organization: State the program office or Region, and the specific division that created the page. Please spell out the organization. Example: "Office of Environmental Information, Information Management Division."
Navigation Items (top or bottom)
Navigation items can be included at the top of the page, the bottom of the page, or both.
The following should appear on all pages. Multi-page documents should include them all
on the first page, and may include them on subsequent pages as well.
- Search - this choice can point to the search page for the "site" or the main search
pages of EPA@Work etc.
- Logical Home- this choice should take the customer to the top level of the logical Web site related to the page the customer is viewing. This kind of logical home choice places the page in context and allows users to find related information. For instance:
Records Home
RTP Records Home
- Location Intranet Home or Local Intranet Home- This choice will take the customer to the top level of the location Intranet site or local Intranet site. EPA@Work should always appear in the the header or footer. For instance:
Always ->EPA@Work Home
Region 1 Intranet Home
Office of Water Intranet Home
- Contact Us: Feedback/Help should allow customers to send comments and ask questions to an email box or provide a phone number for direct contact. It may provide additional information in helping to use the page.
Special Navigational Requirements for Location/Local
Level Home Pages:
A location/local level home page is the top-level page of an independently managed Intranet site. The following navigation choices should be available on the top-level page of each site:
- EPA@Work Home
- EPA Public Home Page
- Location-Level Home Page (Example HQ Intranet)
if the site is a local site
- Contact
Examples of Minimum Navigation Elements:
For an EPA@Work Page that deals with records:
| Search |
Records
Home Page |
EPA@Work
Home Page |
EPA Public
Home Page |
| Contact Us |
For a location Intranet page (RTP Wide Web) that deals with records:
| Search |
RTP Records
Home |
RTPWide
Web Home |
Contact Us |
For a location home page (example RTP):
| Search |
EPA@Work
Home Page |
EPA Public
Home Page |
Contact Us |
Search Pages
EPA@Work provides users the capability of searching selected program office Intranet sites and most of the Regional and local sites.
EPA@Work provides users the capability of searching selected program office Intranet sites and most of the Regional and local sites.
The Agency Intranet search engine is Northern Light which functions by indexing content on the Intranet server, but also on regional or locational servers that contain Intranet content as those regional/locational Webmasters see fit.
When a search is performed, those Intranet resources for which metadata records have been created in the Intranet Web Inventory (IWEBI) are elevated in the search results.
Body
The language of the paragraphs within the body should be concise, clear and simply-worded, but informative. Use hyper links to access explanatory information or to provide access to additional graphics, tables, surveys, and indexes.
Large or Complex Documents
Large documents (greater than five or ten pages) should be organized into sections or chapters and linked together. If the material is meant to be read primarily in order, then a table of contents and division by chapter may be most appropriate. If the material is meant to be picked through, then a division by section with key word links to appropriate sections may be best.
Links to Large Files
Links to files larger than 500 kilobytes should include an explicit note of the file size. It is recommended that ALL files available for download, including PDF files have the file size noted.
Multimedia
Multimedia is supported through the set of standard file types specified by filename extensions. Web browsers associate files with these extensions. The most frequently used multimedia file types are:
- GIF [.gif] The Graphics Interchange Format was developed by CompuServe in 1987. It is the only image type that can be used
for inline images on all platforms. It supports 256 colors. GIF
also supports the creation of transparent backgrounds through the
89a standard. The header and mailbox on the home page of this
document use transparent backgrounds.
- TIFF [DOS .tif, UNIX .tiff] The Tagged Image File Format was
designed by Mircrosoft and Aldus as a desktop publishing
standard. Most viewers support this format.
- JPEG [DOS .jpg, UNIX .jpeg] The JPEG image standard was developed
by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is a bit map
standard with compression.
- MPEG [DOS .mpg, UNIX .mpeg] The most common movie format for the
Web. It is based on the JPEG image standard. Viewers exist for
all platforms.
- Basic Sound [.au .snd] This audio standard was developed on Unix
platforms. Sound players exist for this MIME on almost every
platform.
JPEG is better suited for photographic images while GIF does a better job on graphic images.