Visual Information Specialist
I was hired on as an employee of the National Park Service as the first Visual Information Specialist (VIS) at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument (KAWW). As a term GS11 VIS, I spearheaded and established the VIS program/department for the park unit. While establishing the VIS program, I evaluated the quality and effectiveness of how KAWW was meeting the agency's mission and managed projects onsite and virtually in areas of branding, digital content creation, and messaging. I was fortunate to collaborate with Harpers Ferry Center (HFC) and the Interpretation and Education Program Manager at KAWW to finish and publish the first KAWW unigrid. During this time in the North Maine Woods, I directed design concepts and development for my team and supported the idea execution of many projects.
The bulk of my work was to facilitate and provide leadership in design and development of websites associated with KAWW (NPS.gov, NPgallery, and Rec.gov), concepts for wayside signage and signage on-site, and new media products and smart phone applications, and organizing data to create maps for the site. For those who are familiar with the NPS CMS, I created the things to do, self-guided tours, where to stay, and revised and updated the what to see place pages for the app, which were not established before my position.
Below are samples of some of the work I did during this term.
Katahdin Woods and Waters NM Website & App Facelift!
The website needed some help… as my supervisor shared with me during the interview. But, it wasn’t until I had access to the content management system (CMS) that I really understood the full picture of how much help it needed. I worked closely with the Interpretation and Education Program Manager at KAWW to understand the best way to organize and disseminate information on the website https://www.nps.gov/kaww/index.htm. After the structured data and other pertinent framework pieces were cleaned up, we were ready to write and publish new content for the site.
Creating new website and Shared Content information of course meant long form and short form interpretive writing, but it also meant going out into the field to take high quality photos and videos. As a recently established park unit, KAWW needed to start their catalog of high resolution images of park resources, employees, locations, and other supporting images.
Example of interpretive writing, photography, and publishing web content for KAWW. Click here to view full Trees and Shrubs page.
Worked closely with the NPS national and regional cartography team of to re-organize and clean up the data at KAWW to accurately reflect trails, roads, and usage of the park site. This translated to digital maps. Once the data points were organized to their appropriate categories and layers, I was able to create a more functional recreation map of the local area for visitors to use.
Samples of some of the photography I took under NPS at KAWW. Please more photos with the credit NPS/R.Wang on npgallery.nps.gov. ALL PHOTOS belong to the National Park Service. Please refer to this site to understand copyright and usage information.