Known design debt

There are parts of this project that we know will need additional attention in the future.

For MVP

Printable load tag design

The problem

Law enforcement officers (LEOs) use load tags to enforce regulations in many national forests. Load tags signal to LEOs that the driver purchased a permit and help prevent unnecessary traffic stops. In a future where firewood permits are purchased online, we investigated how a printable load tag could operate.

If load tags were printable, permit purchasers would need to learn how to tag their loads in a new way and LEOs would need to learn how to recognize valid printable load tags. These load tags would need to:

• Be enforceable by LEOs.
• Provide clear, reasonable instructions that give permit purchasers the information they need to fill out and attach the tag to their load properly.
• Incorporate fraud prevention methods into the tag's design and delivery that make it difficult to copy.

What we've done so far

• Investigated which forests require load tags, and which do not.
• Designed an initial printable load tag and tested it with users. We learned that we need clearer instructions on what permit purchasers need to attach the tag to their load. We also got helpful feedback from other 18F designers on how we might improve instruction visuals and the tag's layout.
• Got feedback from FS LEOs and legal staff for on our initial printable load tag design
• Started to investigate high contrast pattern tiles that could signal a valid permit to LEOs from a distance. This would need to be tested under real world scenarios (is it identifiable on the back of a moving vehicle) and design specs would then be needed to develop a library of tiles to provide enough distinct patterns for different forests and years.
• Load tag design for firewood gathering was tested with LEOs and based on findings needs adjustments, which should then be tested.
• Load tags also need to be tested with permit purchasers to understand whether they can successfully use them (print, fold, know how to notch the tag, what to write on the tag & when, and where to put the load tag).

For future states

Forest and permit selection

The problem

Open Forest has experimented with adding more permit types to its platform, including Christmas trees, special use permits and firewood permits, which was the focus of this project. With more permits becoming available online, we questioned if there would be a future where users could find and buy many kinds of USFS permits online from one website.

A few questions that need more investigation:

• What sort of permits would users expect from such a site and how does that align with how the forest service categorizes permit types? Would it be...
  • Information on all forest product permit types (free use and charge permits)?
  • Information on all noncommercial forest product permit types? (aka, permits to collect items for personal use, rather than resale)
  • Information for only the permit types that are available online?
• How many forests would be included on such a site? Could users look up permit information for any forest, forests within a specific region or only pilot forests?

What we've done so far

• Talked with frontliners and permit purchasers about if folks purchased many kinds of permits. In our topline from the Mt. Hood trip, we heard that members of the public often don't know what forest products they can collect and what requires a permit.
• Sketched ideas for what a forest product permit search could look like. We did one version when we visited Mt. Hood, and one while testing an initial online firewood permit MVP.

Interactive firewood cutting maps

This is slated for release 3

The problem

Members of the public often ask frontliners if they are allowed to cut in a specific area when purchasing their permits. Many firewood permit purchasers who we met during our Mt. Hood field trip came to a Forest Service office asking if a specific area where they had seen a downed tree was cleared for firewood cutting. Often, they asked for the frontliner's help to locate a location on a paper map and determine if they could cut there.

Providing online, interactive firewood cutting maps could help permit purchasers lookup locations more easily than printed maps. They could also help communicate conditions that change throughout the year that affect an area's cutting status, like research restrictions, timber sales or fire prevention levels.

A few questions that need more investigation:

• What sort of maps does the Forest Service currently provide online? How are they maintained?
• How would users want to "place" themselves within a map of a forest? Would they use road numbers, landmarks, coordinates or other methods to navigate the map?

What we've done so far

• We did some exploratory sketches of what it could look like to look up a location on an online firewood cutting map. This was descoped from MVP and has not yet been tested with users.