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Flood Prep

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Community Rating System

As a voluntary program of the National Flood Insurance, The Community Rating System allows and encourages local communities to participate in and manage activities centered around floodplan preparation.

The goal of working with the client on this project was to take an extensive questionnaire type of manual, previously presented to communities in pdf form, and build an interactive application that guided Users through digitally.

Perhaps even more importantly, the new web application needed to collect and save documentation from communities, proving their participation in flood preparation.

My Role: UX Director, UX Design, Product Design, IA Architect, Creative Director, Art Direction, Usability Expert, Pitch Presentation

Hero image for the CRS project
Architecture of the experience

Information Architecture / Prototype

Working closely with the client, my team built detailed wireframes around their requirements. These allowed us to plot out a system that matched their needs and the needs of their Users.

Here you can also see that wireframes became an intelligent collaboration tool - where both my team and the client could respond to questions about specific features and functions.

Clickable Demo prototype of the experience

Clickable High-Fidelity Prototype

Before truly building the product, the client needed to win over support from FEMA. In order to do this, they approached us to engage in a pitch-type of project where we could bring the concept to life, in the form of a clickable demo.

Here you can see that I pulled from the FEMA color palette, and brought in imagery that felt relative to the topic, but scenic and not focused on floods.

I worked to take their extensive suite of sections and questions and begin to organize them in an easy left navigational accordian system.

Clickable Demo prototype of the experience

Informative UX

Part of any good survey or question-and-response style system needs to inform the users of their place and progress in order to maintain interest and engagement.

Here you can see I brought in elements such as progress bars and literal translations of exactly what step was currently being shown.

Most critical was keeping the User aware of how many documents had been completed or uploaded alongside their progress through the activities.

Clickable Demo prototype of the experience

User Interface Design

One of the most important features of this App was Communities being able to upload and manage documents for their participation in the program.

Here you will notice the Visual Interface highlights both where and how to upload and also what is uploading. The iconography and legend were also comfortable means for the User to understand which categories of activities were under way, complete or had not even been started.

The limited color palette also keeps the overall design feeling spatious and brings focus easily to the next call to action.

Clickable Demo prototype of the experience

Summary of Progress

In much the same way an E-Commerce platform presents a Check-out summary to the user, this culmination of effort offered the Community a chance to double check their progress, take count of uploaded docs and make any adjustments needed before submitting.

The accordian UX pattern offered a comfortable means for the User to be presented with an extensive list view of their progress.

Clickable Demo prototype of the experience

CRS Specialist View

The application needed to serve as both a tool for communities to progress through documenting their flood preparedness, but also a way for the FEMA representative to view communities' progress and easily download their documentation for review.

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Selected work I've created