Portfolio Archive - Page 5 of 5

Columbia Secondary School: Community Service Drupal Module

I worked with the Assistant Principal in developing a Community Service module for the student college preparation program. The school’s Drupal database not only served as the content management system for the external website but also contained the student, faculty and parent directories, as well as student progress data that would be integrated into a college application report.

The Community Service module included a Google forms input for students, parents and organizations to suggest appropriate opportunities and provide contact details and requirements and/or level of interest. This data was then integrated into a database of opportunities which could be searched by students. Workflow controls allowed the recipient organization to accept and then track hours served by the student, which would output as a report for college applications.

I evaluated the form data and made suggestions, then helped to diagram a workflow process for the system. I also helped keep the external website up to date.

Information Architecture Institute

Website redesign, operations management, community outreach program.

I served as the Operations Manager of the Information Architecture Institute from 2005. For the 2006 and 2008 iainstitute.org website redesigns, I led a team of developers and content strategists. I also translated the site in several languages, including Bulgarian, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, French, Malaysian, German, Norwegian and Polish, with assistance from local leaders.

Team Deliverables:
IAI Redesign Documentation (.PPT)
Content Inventory (.XLS)
Review of New Features – Functional Analysis (.DOC)
Directory Structure (.XLS)
Navigation Concept (.XLS)
Redirect URLs for mod_rewrite (.XLS)

Behind the Book

Usability and strategy analysis, corrections to site architecture and design.

Behind the Book is a non-profit youth literacy program that brings book authors, poets and illustrators into public schools. When I first approached the website, the front end design was poorly implemented. My first task was to recode the page template so that the graphic elements aligned.

The client was also unhappy with the navigation, which seemed to highlight holes in the program instead of its strengths. The main navigation was based on the location of school visits and author name. On researching users and program participants, we found that author name recognition was important, but that teachers were less likely to find appropriate authors if they searched by location only. Some boroughs only had high school level participants and others only had authors who wrote for younger readers. Also, at the time, there were no visits recorded in the borough of Staten Island, leading users to believe that Behind the Book did not work with Staten Island schools.

I restructured the information architecture around grade level rather than location and tested the new design with prospective users and advisory board members. Allowing navigation by grade level made it much easier for teachers at prospective schools to locate appropriate authors. This satisfied a major goal to bring more schools into the program.

Avian Tree of Life, American Museum of Natural History

Web design, information architecture, image maps, taxonomy, XML.

The American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Ornithology was a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Assembling the Tree of Life Initiative, a comprehensive taxonomic study of life, in collaboration with the Field Museum in Chicago and other institutions. I developed a prototype for a website devoted to the Avian tree.

The site contained a listing of the bird family by common name and scientific name as well as a graphical navigation tree that allowed users to browse the Avian Tree of Life. A page for each family, genus and species would include its position on the tree of life and the option to navigate to narrower or higher levels on the tree. It also contained a description of the node on the tree and citations of relevant research conducted in the museum’s DNA lab.

One of the problems the scientists were working on was the data coming out of the DNA lab, which suggested major and minor adjustments to the traditional placement of animals and entire groups within the avian tree. I had suggested and was working on an XML schema, mirroring the avian taxonomy and applying attributes to indicate a level of confidence that a node was placed in the correct position.

Deliverables:
Site Map, Wireframes and Site Concept Deliverables (.PPT)
Quality Assurance Instructions (.DOC)

Proposed Site Map

Navigating the Avian Tree of Life: Top level navigation starts with the major bird families.

Subnavigation: Subsequent cladograms are interactive, bringing user to the next level in the family tree.

Community Information Technology Initiative

Usability analysis, functional requirements, user research, user interviews, page content, community outreach program facilitation.

Noreen worked with the Municipal Art Society and the New York Public Interest Research Group to develop a mapping platform that was easy to use and powerful enough to provide community board members a visualization tool comparable to those used by developers and engineering firms involved with local zoning and real estate development proposals.

Issue: Access to geographic data visualization was limited at the community board level of planning.

Solution: An easy-to-use online community mapping interface and training.

Noreen conducted usability studies with community boards in four boroughs to identify geographic information needs for planning and presentation. Noreen’s research was integrated into a simple geographic information systems interface, with powerful backend technology that is equivalent to that used by companies with fewer limitations. Noreen facilitated trainings at the Municipal Art Society, Community Board offices and high schools that informed the final product design. The mapping interface was ultimately adopted by the New York City Department of City Planning.

Deliverables:
Site Concept and Blueprint (.PPT)
Data Layer Needs Summary (.DOC)
Functionality Summary (.DOC)
Manhattan CB1 Needs Assessment (.DOC)
CITI Presentation to Data Connection Conference (.DOC)

Vietnam: Tay Con Linh 2000, American Museum of Natural History

Web design, image optimization, html slide show.

The Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History maintains a research website, including description and images from recent expeditions. I worked with Paul Sweet, Collections Manager, on developing a slide show of the 2000 expedition to Mount Tay Cohn Lihn in Ha Giang Province, Vietnam.

Website
Slide Show

Note: While the original website and slide show of the Department of Ornithology’s Vietnam Exhibition were captured on Archive.org, the slide show images were not. The current page for the Vietnam Expedition is located at http://research.amnh.org/vz/ornithology/research-activities/vietnam-2000-mount-tay-con-linh

GISMO

Web site redesign, graphic design, navigation, HTML editing, interactivity, listserv/egroups administration.

GISMO is a New York City geographic information systems users group, which sponsors monthly programs for new and experienced users. The web site is a combination of GIS resources and outreach.

Projects I co-led, co-curated or otherwise participated in a special committee are listed below.

New York City GIS Advocacy

As a board member, I’ve been advocating for better geospatial awareness and operations in New York City government. I worked with a committee at GISMO, including former GIS Director Alan Leidner, GISMO Founder and Queens Historian Jack Eichenbaum, Consultant and former DEP geographer Wendy Dorf, with advisement from NYC Council Members Gale Brewer (then Manhattan President), Steven Levin and then NYC Council Committee on Technology chair Robert Holden. I had the opportunity to testify twice: Once in person in 2019 and again online in 2020. You can read our our GIS Principles and Policies statement and my testimony on the need for a Chief GIS Officer at the May 2019 NYC Charter Revision Commission.

GISMO@30 Anniversary Event

I was on the planning team for GISMO’s 30th anniversary in May 2020, focusing on our commitment to bring New York City back to the level of accountability achieved post-9/11. The theme for the 30th anniversary was “GIS 2020 and Beyond: Seeing our Spatial Future Clearly.”

Presenters

Jack Eichenbaum, GISMO, Founder, GISMO historic overview and founding principles
Wendy Dorf, GISMO, Board Member, Description and status of legislative initiative
Alan Leidner, GISMO, President, “Underground Infrastructure Initiative, and relationship with OGC”
Frank Winters, NYS GIO, “The Value of GIS in the Pandemic”
Sean Ahearn, Professor Hunter College, Director CARSI, “The Geospatial Triade & C19 – Case Geocoding, contact/proximity tracing, & spatial diffusion”
George Percivall, Chief Technology Officer, OGC, “Geospatial Data Science considering COVID-19”

GISMO@25 Anniversary Event

On the 25th anniversary of GISMO, I curated a Panel Discussion on Crowd Sourcing, Social Media and NYC’s GIS Startup Scene, featuring New York City-based GIS specialists and geodata users.

Panelists

Noel Hidalgo, BetaNYC Program Manager, a Code for America brigade
Aileen Gemma Smith, CEO, Vizalytics, MindMyBizApp
Lela Prashad, CEO, NiJel
Steven Adler, IBM Chief Innovation Officer, Africa Open Data Meetup: Ebola Data Map

Map Mosaic Exhibition at the Queens Museum, 2017

As part of the 25th Anniversary celebration, fellow GISMO board member Amy Jeu and I curated a weekend exhibit, Map Mosaic: From Queens to the World, on October 29-30, 2017 at the Queens Museum celebrating the map-making community. The event featured talks and demonstrations, children’s activities, as well as a hall dedicated to paper and digital maps submitted from the private and public collections of members of the GISMO community. These maps represent a wide range of themes including the diverse Queens neighborhood and demographics, urban planning, environmental studies, election analysis and more.

Geodata CEO Breakfast with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, November 19, 2014

On the morning of the American Geographical Society’s annual meeting, “Geography 2050,” I hosted a breakfast at Booz Allen Hamilton with GISMO president, Alan Leidner, in which we invited key officers of the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, including then NGA Director Robert Cardillo, to meet with and view presentations by the CEOs of several geodata startup and mid-maturity firms in New York City. Participating organizations included CartoDB, Boundless, Sourcemap, Interface Foundry, Ontodia/Pediacities, End Point Corporation, as well as the U.S. Geo-Intelligence Foundation and the GIS Director for the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. These meetings are the first of several planned for the NYGeoCATs business development program.

GIS Startup Showcase, November 18, 2014

GISMO hosted a GIS Startup Showcase at the New York Public Library on the evening of November 18, 2014. I worked with Jessie Braden, Director of the Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative at Pratt Institute, to curate a panel of data users representing local businesses and data providers from local and regional government, academic institutions and library initiatives.

Data Users

Jordan Preston, LavaMap
Rachel Law, CEO, Interface Foundry
Alexandre Winter, Placemeter
Alicia Roualt, Local Data
Joshua Campbell, Boundless
Miguel Arias, COO, CartoDB
Bianca Rodrigues, End Point, Liquid Galaxy
Joel Natividad, CEO, Ontodia, PediaCities)
Leo Bonnani, CEO, Sourcemap

Data Providers

Matt Knutzen, Chief Librarian and Curator, NYPL Map Division
Chris Barnett, GIS Librarian, Tufts University, OpenGeoPortal
Colin Reilly, GIS Director, NYC DOITT
Sam Wear, GIS Director, Westchester County
Andrew Nicklin, Open NY, NY State ITS

Beginning these conversations helps New York City leverage the new technologies being created in our backyard and provide improved services to our citizens. In turn, startup businesses make valuable connections, including access to open and available datasets, which increase the potential to build traction and sustainability.

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Web site technical and content review and editing, operations support, site metrics reporting, webmaster mail processing, policies and procedures documentation, technical process documentation

I created and tested web pages generated via Lotus Notes databases for the company’s global web site. I documented the process, errors, etc. and made corrections as needed. I worked with designers, editors and agent script writers to ensure optimal performance. In addition, I managed site metrics, including lead tracking via the Contact Us form, search log analysis and server performance reporting.

Example of Form Action: User action in the Contact Us form, including the business topic selected and the page last visited, informed the form logic, indicating which business unit would be copied. In turn, the inquiry was logged into a business lead tracking system, which was incorporated in a monthly report to department managers. We were able to identify over $300 million worth of engagements directly mapped to contact form inquiries in the first year.

MacCrate Associates Ltd.

Website strategy, information design, graphic design, user interface, HTML editing, javascript, technical development, and site maintenance.

I developed web design concept and implementation for MacCrate Associates, a real estate and advisory services firm. The project included a web hosting analysis as well as all design work and ongoing administration.

James R. MacCrate and I also collaborated on many projects over the years, including developing a number of workshops on appraisal research, market research, and internet research for Prudential Insurance, The Appraisal Institute, and New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. We coauthored a number of blog posts and articles for his personal weblogs and industry publications. I also subcontracted as a market researcher and mapping specialist for various real estate and business appraisal projects.

MacCrate Associates is a real estate and financial advisory services firm, working in the New York City, metro and Tri-State region.

Note: James R. MacCrate sadly passed away in 2018. He was a treasured mentor and friend.