5. DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDARDIZED  

GEOGRAPHIC AREA COORDINATION CENTER 

(GACC) WEBSITE 

In developing the general GACC website standardization template, it is important to 

remember that it is the visitor that the site is designed for.  If the template is difficult to follow, 

colors are exasperating, or links don't make sense to the user, then the developer has 

turned off the visitor and has wasted a lot time for the developer and the visitor.  With this in 

mind, a lot of discussion revolved around which pages need to follow the template and 

which pages do not, who should decide on colors for the site, and what works best for the 

visitor.   

In the end, the NGWC believes it has developed: 

  A basic, simplified website template which consists of three tiers and will get the 

visitor to their desired product, no matter which GACC they are visiting. 

o

  Tier One, the Welcome page 

o

  Tier Two, any website page linked from the Welcome page 

o

  Tier Three, the product or an external link page 

The current template is being hosted by the Southwest Area on their website at: 

http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/fire/national_web/gacc_final

The initial date established by the NGWC to move to the new GACC standardized template 

is set for May 2, 2005.  However, it is understood that not all GACCs will have their new 

template ready and in place by this date.  Therefore, each GACC is requested to have their 

new site up and running as soon as possible after this date, but no later than July 1, 2005. 

In the time period between receipt of these implementation guides and the date of 

installation of the new GACC website, it is important to post information on your current site 

to inform visitors that the site will be going to a new design, and in some cases will be 

changing its URL.  A statement similar, but not limited to, the following may be used:   

 On ____(date)_____, the _____(your GACC name)_______________ website will be 

changing its current design to match up with the GACC national standardized website 

template.  In addition, the URL (i.e. web address) will be changing at the same time to 

____(enter new GACC address if moving to FAMWEB server)_____.  We believe, over 

time, the new standardized GACC template will help you to better find the product(s) on 

our site and to make it much easier for finding a similar product(s) when visiting another 

GACC website.  Thank you.  _____(enter your GACC name)____.   

5.1 GACC RESPONSIBILITY REVIEW 

Before working on development of the your new GACC website, it is important that the 

GACC understand the general roles and responsibilities as listed in Chapter III, Section 

National GACC Website and GACC Website Template  

10

  Implementation Guidelines