Introduction to the Project

Hack for LA Website (HackforLA.org)

The HackforLA.org website’s purpose is to connect volunteers with projects, code for America and Hack for LA’s shared mission and let external stakeholders know that we are producing valuable projects with tangible impact. The website is also the place that new developers often start, moving on to more complex projects after they have mastered docker, git, github and working collaboratively on a multidisciplinary team.

History

The new website team was formed when the website was one page and required a code change to something easier to update. This website displayed a handful of projects, an email signup form and a focus on getting people to come to our 3 weekly hack nights with information being hosted on meetup.

COVID-accelerated Development

COVID-19 safer at home policies created urgency to move all the teams to fully remote, and redesign the onboarding methodology from in-person and being driven by meetup, to online driven by a variety of new recruiting sources.

• Launch of a step-by-step getting started guide
• Creation and integration of an onboarding video
• Creation of an online team meeting schedule and API integration with VRMS to make the information able to be updated by project managers in the future
• Github API integration to display project languages alongside static project information
• Creation of an analytics dashboard to display and analyze all the survey data being gathered
• Created wiki that details all aspects of hackforla.org website code for new developers

HackforLA.org under development for launch in coming three months

• Step-by-step guides for onboarding (e.g., 2 Factor Authentication, How to write a good github issue, Creating a Project Board in Github, etc.)
• Integration of our Google Data Studio analytics dashboard into the website, for transparency for all members
• Launch project filtering by skill, language, topic area, etc.
• Create credits page
• Create an events page to better communicate how we come together, especially in absence of physical events
• Create wins page to encourage the capture and celebration of new jobs, promotions, skills learned, etc.
• Redesign of mobile version of site
• Refine collection and reporting of analytics *About Us Page - Helpful information about our goals, roadmap and north star
• Civic engagement - project details, how to help, important members and tools
• Communities of practice - Provide users information regarding different communities (UI, Data, Eng, PM, etc). Helpful for users to connect with specific groups.
• Credits Page - Photo and icon credits along with those who contributed to it.
• Events Page - List of events our users can attend to help our project along with learning more skills.
• Guide Page - Various guides on how tos and metrics. Useful for users to quickly learn something
• Impact Page - Projects we’ve worked on and their impact. We can showcase to potential partners and new volunteers how their work can make a difference.
• Getting Started Page - New user onboarding. This is useful for new users and getting them up to speed.
• Join Us Page - Page to let users know various way they can join our cause and contribute.
• Organizational Dashboard Page -
• Organizational Metrics Page - Website metrics. Useful to help us analyze where and what our users are doing and how we can help them better
• Project Page - New project page with all our current projects. Helps users see whats available and where their interested in helping out
• Project Verticales Page - Projects grouped under various social and civic efforts to better help users pick their project based on their choice of political engagement field.
• Project Team Meetings page - Meeting times for all groups. Users can quickly check and attend those they are interested in working with
• Roles- All available roles users can volunteer for and help out
• Site map Page - Map of the website and all its pages. Let’s users know how they can access certain parts of the site
• Toolkit Page - Guides on how to set up github 2fa, create issues etc. Useful for new users
• Wins Page - Helping our volunteers recognize their milestones and motivate them to reach higher.

And where are we going from here?

We are in the process of developing a product roadmap that will chart out a future 6-12 months of development. We will continue taking into account past feedback, which includes the following:

The primary functions of the Hack for LA website is to recruit and match prospective volunteers to ongoing technology projects. The website must achieve two key goals: (1) present a clear and compelling value proposition for participation; (2) enable interested volunteers to identify and join projects that align with both their areas of interest and skills.

Earlier HFLA discovery research found that ~25% of survey respondents felt the website’s UI/UX could be improved. Nearly 1 in 5 respondents could not find all the information they sought. In descending order, the top three categories of information sought are:

1. Volunteer opportunities
2. Current project information
3. Other - Includes information about GitHub and Python workshops, working examples of past successful projects, what goes on at Meetup meetings, and whether beginner-level technologists can join.

The current presentation of project cards on the home page forces users to scroll in a cumbersome way through one or more pages. This makes it difficult to find and locate projects of interest quickly. And the project cards do not provide a clear call to action to prospective volunteers.