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EPA Goes Mobile with the Launch of m.epa.gov

Posted on December 9th, 2008 - 2:00 PM

About the author: Yolanda DeLilly, an Information Technology Specialist, joined EPA in 1988 and is currently working in the Office of Web Communications.

Back in August of this year I had the privilege of having lunch with Jeffrey Levy, Director of the Office of Web Communications, to discuss me doing a short assignment in his office to design a mobile website for EPA.

screenshot of handheld device showing EPA's mobile Web home pageMy first day, September 9, was a hectic one considering it was the launch of EPA’s new and improved homepage, in which I got pulled in to do some QAQC. In spite of that I still managed to do some research to see if there were any federal government mobile websites already out there in cyber land. I found that there are not a lot of federal government agencies with mobile sites. This made getting started a little difficult.

I did manage to find that usa.gov has a link to its mobile website mobile.usa.gov. This site has an A-Z index of all available state and federal agencies with mobile websites. Then I had an ah-haa moment.

Once I began thinking about what information would be useful on an EPA mobile website I began to build it. To my surprise it was not that difficult to build the site using my web editor. The most difficult part of the building the site was thinking about the beneficial important information.

The really cool thing about creating this mobile site was not only making EPA more visible to people on the go but also knowing that I was creating a site that will go down in history as the first mobile site for EPA.

Here is what you will find on EPA’s mobile site:

  • How to contact EPA
  • Find information by ZIP code
  • EPA news releases
  • Greenversations blog, including the question of the week, and
  • Links to other government mobile websites.

I was able to test the site on a Blackberry and an iPhone and it looks great on both. It would be helpful to hear feedback from all mobile device users on:

  • What you think about the site, and
  • What can we do to improve it.

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7 Responses to “EPA Goes Mobile with the Launch of m.epa.gov”

  1. joan Says:
    December 9th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Yolanda, is there a link to the mobile site, or is it not yet ready to be unveiled?

    [Reply]

    Yolanda reply on December 9, 2008 4:18 pm:

    Hi Joan, thanks for catch. We have added a link within the blog now. I hope this helps.

    [Reply]

  2. Robert Says:
    December 9th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    it doesnt look like it’s ready yet

    [Reply]

  3. enkz Says:
    December 9th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    I hear about EPA when I watched the simpsons movie.
    It will be so helpful because now people are mobile.

    [Reply]

  4. mark Says:
    December 10th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

    Will there be a browser detection feature on the main EPA website directing those with the “blackberry” browser field or other mobile web browsers to the new site?

    regards,
    –Mark

    [Reply]

  5. cooler choice Says:
    December 10th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    mobile sites are great for getting the word out to new people but maybe a few more interesting things would be nice like links to environmental issues and news etc that people can download to their mobiles

    [Reply]

  6. Van Theodorou Says:
    February 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    I think its a great idea. I had read where Japan is very much further along than us when it comes to mobile computing so I think this is a great step in the right direction.

    [Reply]

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