Last September, NASBLA's Engineering, Reporting & Analysis Committee (ERAC) rolled out a revamped Lighthouse section of the main NASBLA website (see NASBLA Weekly, Sept. 10, 2025). The redesign was intended to create an improved user experience with simpler navigation and more intuitive organization of the resources within. Given some time and experience on the site, users, including our own committee members, found that to be generally true, but not wholly the hoped-for result ... especially if they were in a rush to find the guidance, the list, the definition, the tool that they thought would be in there, but just couldn't spend time -- at that time -- exploring.
We've taken an interim step toward that goal until a more "permanent" web feature (or as permanent as any web-based feature can be) is developed and in coordination with any other improvements to the overall NASBLA site. You can help us by taking a test drive on this new feature at the Lighthouse launch page. You can still click on the icons to reach the components of the site, but if you are looking for something more specific in five areas, click on Quick Finder at the center of the page. It links to a PDF with live links to entries related to federal regulations & policies, federal reporting guidance, reporting best practices & checklists, annual incident statistics, and national boating surveys. The vast majority link to information and products already in the Lighthouse sections; some others, external to the site, have been added.
Take a look. Give us some feedback -- good or not-so-good -- and if it's good, what specifically do you like? and if it's the latter, what would you do to make it better? If you'd like to see some additions, tell us that, too.
You can jot your thoughts here, or send them directly to me at deb@nasbla.org.
Thank you!
Deb Gona
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Deb Gona
NASBLA Research Consultant
Gona & Associates
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