The innovative Web site designed by the City of Davis Webmaster allows children to view firefighters in their various stages of protective gear. Images courtesy of the City of Davis

After a locally designed Web site recently gained national attention, technologists here on campus got the chance to meet the man behind the magic. On December 10, IET Mediaworks hosted a presentation by Seth Duffey, Webmaster for the City of Davis. Duffey spoke about the processes involved in designing and implementing a Web site for the Davis Fire Department. He designed the Firefighter Protective Clothing Tour Web site using the Web-design program FlashMX, a software product enabling designers to integrate animation, video, and graphics-heavy elements into Web sites.

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The site originally came to the attention of UC Davis technologists by way of Lisa Wilson, programmer for Mediaworks, when she attended the Macromedia Developers Convention in October. Wilson, who first met Seth Duffey at local Sacramento ColdFusion User Group (SacCFUG) meetings, recognized this “great opportunity to learn and share information with other IET and campus groups.”

The Firefighter Protective Clothing Tour Web site, developed in Duffey’s spare time over the course of a year, was intended to familiarize children with the bulky clothing and equipment worn and used by firefighters, thus mitigating fears children have when confronted with a firefighter during traumatic situations. The site includes dramatic video of firefighters tending to fires, demonstrating ventilation procedures, and donning special gear and shields for both water and grass fire conditions. Duffey reports that since the site went live in mid-October, he has received “a lot of good feedback from kids, parents, teachers and firefighters” who agree that the site is “cool” and “tremendously educational and interesting.” Teachers have reported using the site as an educational tool in the classroom, and the fire department recently used the site during their fire-prevention week open house.

By engineering the multiple layers of the site to load individually, Duffey ensured that people with computers of all speeds would easily be able to view the sophisticated site. Visitors can skip quickly from photo albums of gear, to instructional videos on using a fire extinguisher or seeing through the lens of a thermal image camera in a smoky room, to audio commentary from firefighters themselves, and even to a printable firefighter paper-doll cut-out page.

Not only has this dynamic Web site gained local attention, but it also gained national recognition for its presentation of text, audio, graphics and video when it was displayed at Macromedia’s Developers Convention in October. Additionally, the site was named Macromedia’s Site of the Day on November 6 and is featured in the ‘Video Spotlight’ section of the December Edge newsletter.

Duffey has worked for the City of Davis Information Services division for three years. His background includes HTML coding, database administration, ColdFusion and Flash. His recent work with Flash for the City of Davis Web site includes both the Firefighter Protective Clothing Tour and the Fire Engine Tour.

Children are not the only ones who have learned from these Web sites. Duffey states he enjoys creating the tours because he learns “new things about Flash and about firefighting.”

Learning was certainly a theme throughout Duffey’s presentation. He explained how much he had to learn to create the site. The Davis audience was all ears to his tales of arranging photo shoots of fire department employees and their equipment (including 360 degree shots), editing some of the 150 photos taken (some in front of a specialized movie-set style blue-screen), creating interface movies, shooting and editing video of live and simulated fires, obtaining and editing audio of fire engine sirens and other equipment, and incorporating photos, video and audio into Flash. To accomplish all of this, Duffey collaborated with the City of Davis Fire Department staff, and Robert Schulz, Media Services Specialist for the City of Davis. Fire Department staff provided all of the text information for the site, and Duffey worked with Schulz on the image and sound acquisition. Everybody involved helped with proofing the extensive site. By the end of the whole process Duffey had taken advantage of many software programs such as ColdFusion, FlashMX, Photoshop, Sorensen Squeeze, and SoundForge.

Gerry Russell, Senior Lecturer in Food Science and Technology, was among the 45 UC Davis folks who attended the presentation held in the Silo Cabernet Room. Russell showed up to get some ideas about how to better communicate his Web site needs to specialized programmers. He was impressed by Duffey’s Web site and appreciated his explanations of the design trade-offs [of using Flash]. Russell felt Duffey’s site demonstrated a wise use of Flash without “falling into the all-too-common generation of glitz.”

Erol Layiktez, Programmer for the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, chose to attend because he believes that “Flash is becoming more and more important in the design field” for its capacity to allow users to obtain data from any database and its recent integration into the new Palm Operating System.

Always in search of opportunities to share techniques that help campus folks improve education, Lisa Wilson and other Mediaworks staff—the organizers of the presentation—also regularly present at the Arbor’s Meet the Experts series and provide one-hour presentations on Internet, photography, video tools and multimedia production techniques. Wilson recognizes the importance of these kinds of gatherings: “With new technologies emerging daily, there is a lot to learn, and shared experiences provide us with new perspectives and ideas.”