Kris Kuny, Header
 

Older Web Sites: United States House of Representatives (2002-2003)

During 2002 through the end of 2003, I worked as a contractor in the Web Services Division of the House of Representatives. I redesigned the sites listed below and provided technical support to member offices. For a detailed list of technical support I provided, see list at bottom of this page.

The member sites of the House of Representatives function in essentially two capacities:

  • Constituents Services
     Casework, Grant Assistance, Contact your Representative
  • Media Relations
     Press Releases, Position Statements, Photo Albums, District-specific News

During my employment in the Web Services Division, the House did not use ColdFusion, PHP or ASP. Any ASP Member sites using these technologies were hosted by outside vendors. The Web Services Division was working on a ASP project in which I had peripheral involvement, and this was released in the beginning of 2004. There are two content management systems which have been built in-house, using CGI and Perl. I have configured my House sites to include these features when appropriate.

A note about Graphic Appearance and Applied Interactive Technology
Ultimately, the appearance and utilization of content management systems and other technologies was the decision of the office. Often the ability of staff to maintain the site after it was developed, determined the level of design complexity.

Please note that the online versions of all sites listed below have changed since my employment in 2002 and 2003. In general, House members request a site redesign once a year.

 

Image of Zoe Lofgren's Home Page in 2003.Zoe Lofgren
http://zoelofgren.house.gov/

This site was conceived using the visual “grid” approach popular in traditional page layout. The banner does not take up much vertical space so there is more room for content. The picture of Silicon Valley represents their district and the Capitol image was added to suggest a tie between California’s 16th district and Washington, DC. Congresswoman Lofgren did not want her picture on the banner. Otherwise it would have replaced the Capitol image. The navigation buttons are JavaScript rollovers, and this feature is consistent throughout the entire site to provide easy navigation. The cascading style sheet (CSS) uses the Verdana, Helvetica, Arial typeface families, all san serif, and were chosen to emphasize the grid layout. The headlines and hyperlinks to press releases from the “In the News” section are dynamically generated from the in-house content management system.

Image of Jim Gerlach's Home Page from 2003.

Jim Gerlach
http://www.house.gov/gerlach/

This site shares the same design principles as the Lofgren site. Noteworthy features are:

  • Zip code authentication form which limits subscribers to the Congressman’s district.
  • Subscription to the Congressman’s list serve.
  • Search feature for site
  • News links dynamically generated from content management system.

Other sites, I redesigned while at the House of Representatives are: http://www.house.gov/calvert/, http://www.house.gov/weldon/, http://www.house.gov/emerson/, http://www.house.gov/reynolds/

Technical Support I Provided While at the House of Representatives

  • Setup and modified cgi-based web forms and parameter files with XML tags to integrate web form data with correspondence management database software.
  • Provided technical support for TCP/IP related issues such as FTP configuration and problem diagnosis. Assisted Security and Infrastructure departments in setting up permissions for secure firewall port access.
  • Investigated and determined problem areas of security issues such as network authentication and password protection/permissions.
  • Resolved problems with virtual domains and DNS entries, UNIX/NT platform issues.
  • Configured list serves, granted permissions, and setup html subscription pages.
  • Developed and tested templates for ASP developers.
  • Created accounts for Web Trends (site usage statistic reporting software) and taught staff how to interpret usage data.
  • Assisted and instructed staff in usage of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, FrontPage, WS-FTP.
  • Addressed and remedied Section 508 compliance issues.