With all the natural disasters and mass violence happening around the country, the North Central Texas Council of Governments Emergency Preparedness department wanted to educate the public. Working with Texas-based Pavlov Agency, they were able to create the interactive website called KnoWhat2Do.

The website's mission is to educate users to prepare themselves for local severe weather, mass violence, home hazards and epidemics by constructing a personalized emergency plan and emergency kit. Using animation created with HTML5 and JQuery, the site strives to make the information user-friendly with important interactive features like the little waving “Make a Plan” flag in the right corner. Content has also been delivered in a variety of ways across the site, including integrated quiz questions with answers, translated Spanish content pages and embedded videos within different sections of the website. The website’s header features five different animated emergency situations (Tornado, Hail, Epidemic, Thunderstorm, Flood) that randomly appear each time the page is loaded. Each variation utilizes differing development techniques and incorporates fun “Easter eggs” for the user to experience, like the hail that can be easily moved or the rain changing directions in the thunderstorm based on mouse movement.

In order to achieve fast loading while maintaining the rich graphical experience of the animations, Pavlov Agency used GTmetrix and WebGL. The main navigation menu itself was designed to enhance user experience and maintain adaptability for all device screen sizes. Completed in five months, not only is the site impactful and creative, but it also succeeds in its mission to inform residents about emergency situations and how to prepare for them.