Environmental Performance Measures for State Departments of Transportation (2015)

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58 Communicating performance results is often a key element in a state DOT’s performance management program. This chapter outlines a conceptual template for a national-scale website that displays all participating states’ environmental performance measure results. In Figures 13 to 18, North Carolina’s proof of concept data is used to showcase the website’s functionality, including screenshots from the demonstration website template created as part of the project’s research phase and some accompanying text explaining each element of the website template. C H A P T E R 6 Web-Based Measure-Reporting Template Figure 13. Website home page. The home page gives an overview of the suite of environmental measures. More detailed information can be found by clicking on the “about” link at the top right of the page. Users can navigate back to this page at any time by clicking the “State DOTs and the Environment” heading, which remains in place on all of the website’s pages. From the home page users can choose one of two directions: select a state of interest from the map or select an environmental area of interest from the list across the top banner. A clickable map of the United States allows users to identify a single state’s results. In the example, North Carolina is shaded darker grey to indicate performance results are available. A click takes users to North Carolina’s custom state overview page, which displays an overview of its results across all measures, compared with the pilot state averages.

Web-Based Measure-Reporting Template 59 Figure 14. State overview page (North Carolina example).

60 Environmental Performance Measures for State Departments of Transportation Figure 15. Measure overview page (air quality example). Users can navigate to an environmental focus area from the website’s homepage by using the menu bar at the top of the screen. Hovering the mouse over a focus area displays the associated measure. Clicking on a focus area takes a user to its measure overviewpage, which displays average pilot state results.

Web-Based Measure-Reporting Template 61 Figure 16. Focus area/state level measure results page (air quality example). By clicking a state on the map, users can compare an individual state’s results in a focus area with average pilot state results.

62 Environmental Performance Measures for State Departments of Transportation Figure 17. Details page (air quality example). At the bottom of the measure overview page is a clickable “Details” link. It displays detailed information about the measure, including data sources, calculation details, and any caveats. Because some of the additional information is nuanced and lengthy, this information is only displayed if the user seeks it out. The default is to show users only the most succinct, high-level information so it is more easily processed, with more in-depth information available but not intrusive.

Web-Based Measure-Reporting Template 63 Figure 18. Website functionality. Generally, the website template is easily navigated; any page is reachable with one click and no back clicking is required. Once on a focus area page displaying a single state’s results, a new state can be added with one click. Likewise, a user can choose a different focus area with one click and see a chart displaying the previously selected state’s results for the new focus area. A state’s overview page can always be reached from any page by clicking the state name that displays above the map.