codefordenver / circular Goto Github PK

Add filtering and search features to the Denver Community Gardens website in order to simplify the process of finding a plot.

On the nav bar, visible on all pages,
I can click on Search
and I am taken to a search page with a search bar in the middle top of the page.
Beneath the search bar is a grid of current campaigns with their maps and property names.
I can click on these campaigns and see the property show page.

Form a team of 2 to 5 people

Gather with at least one other person to create a team around an idea or a problem that's interesting to you.

Spend a few minutes asking these questions:

• What's our shared vision?
  • Talk about what goal you want to accomplish as a team.
• What's in it for me?
  • Talk about each individual's motivation - what do you as an individual want to learn or accomplish?
• What talents do we bring to the table?
  • Share a bit of your experience and skills
• Set working agreements
  • What agreements do you, as a team, want to make for the time you are spending together?
  • Suggestions:
    • Show Up On Time
    • Agree on when you'll meet
    • "Art of the Possible" - no idea is stupid, let's consider everything.
    • Be Present - when you're here, you're here, be intentional with your time.

That's it! Now you have a clear goal for your team to accomplish and you know why each of you are here.

Should you Pivot or Persevere?

What feedback did you receive from potential customers?

If the feedback confirmed that you're solving the right problem, for the right people, in the right way, awesome! Let's move forward.

If you received feedback that makes you want to rethink your problem, customer segment, or solution, now's the time.

• Update your lean canvas, and consider going back to the brainstorming and paper prototyping phase to take another shot at it.

Keep iterating until you get feedback that tells you to push on! Keep track of your pivots to share how you arrived at your end solution during your pitch.

As a user
when I am on a property campaign page
I can click to share with Facebook.
I can click to support with my google account.
I can click to support with my facebook account.

Let's build something!

You should now have a backlog of cards on your board representing what you need to do to build and test your MVP. Let's get to work!

For best results, timebox your development into 20-30 minute mini sprints using a timer to continually check on progress and give you the best chance of reaching your goals by the end of the event.

As a user when I go to the Recycling Request Tool homepage, I scroll down past the address input field and click on the bottom left "Learn More" (about recycling in Denver) link.

Does this project exist?

Have you found solutions for the same challenge that exist already? Are there apps or solutions out there that are already being used to address this issue? If so, how do they fall short of meeting their goal, if at all? Be honest with yourself. Is it worth our time to build something that competes with what’s already out there? Are there ways we could improve on existing projects to be more impactful? If there’s nothing already out there that addresses this challenge, ask yourself why not. What barriers exist that inhibit progress in this area? Does this challenge call for a technical solution? Maybe the issue is at heart an organizational or physical one, rather than something that a tech approach can solve.

Identify existing alternatives

Take time to discuss as a group how people solve this problem today. Document all of the existing ways people solve the problem you want to solve.

As a user, I would like to know that the address (information) was submitted then take me to the screen that allows, or asks, me to create a petition. OR a page that says a petition has been created and asks if I would like to join

What is your Unique Value Proposition?

Fill in Box 3, the "Unique Value Proposition."

What is a UVP?

Your unique value proposition is the promise you're making to your customer that's compelling enough for them to jump on board.

Writing a UVP

Here are two suggested formats:

1. Ask yourself: "If I solve the problem [by doing this] for my customer, is that compelling?"

When you can substitute [by doing this] with something compelling, that's the Unique Value Proposition you're proposing.

2. Complete the statement: "I can promise [the customer in Box 1] who faces [the problem in Box 2] that I can give them [unique value proposition in Box 3]."

Lastly, don't forget to fill out the High Level Concept! This serves as a clear way to describe who you are. For Uber, this would be "Order a taxi with your phone." It can also be an 'x for y' concept like "Instagram for Pet Lovers."

Who is your customer?

Fill in Box 2 of your lean canvas.

Ask yourself:

• Who do I think this problem (from Box #1) is most painful for?
• Who do I think my "early adopter" will be?

Be specific! For example, instead of saying "Teenagers," narrow it down to "Female high school students who own cell phones."

Looking for a statistic that describes the current recycling participation rate of 8+ multi-family units. We are looking for a baseline metric that the City of Denver is using to track improvements to participation by landlords.

Who is meeting with EcoCycle? Do we have a primary POC? Are we logging all our issues?

As a user on a property campaign page,
I can click to login with Google.
Upon consent, my first name, last name and email address will be filled in,
and I can still enter an optional note.
(Oauth already exists, just needs to be plugged in to this spot)

Research Potential Partners

• Teams should identify at least two potential project partners.
• Potential partners should be non-profit, government, or quasi-governmental organizations, community-based organizations or other community groups or organizations consistent with the CfD mission.
  Teams should identify if the initial idea is consistent with potential partner organization mission and goals.
• Teams should be able to clearly identify how potential partners could used the built solution, how they would maintain the end product and partners overall role in the built solution product live cycle.

As a user on a property campaign page,
I can click to login with Facebook.
Upon consent, my first name, last name and email address will be filled in,
and I can still enter an optional note.

As a user
when I type in my address on the main page under the words "Does your building need recycling? Request it" - search for your building - Go
I am taken to a new page with my address marked on the map

This wouldn't be crucial to the operation, but I think some people would take advantage of knowing exactly where they can drop off their recycling if their landlord doesn't offer recycling. It could be represented by a bunch of pins on a map, or a list of linked addresses (or both).

Research available options/gems
possibility: https://github.com/derrek/street-address
Incorporate into search address functionality

Is the problem worth solving?

When deciding on what projects to build at Code for Denver, one of our primary concerns is the impact a given project will have on the community. This is why we emphasize the user aspect of the project: does this project benefit an identifiable group of people? Can you find real persons to test prototypes and the MVP? If you can’t identify who will benefit, and this project can’t be quantified in terms of users and user-testable MVPs, then this project might not be a good fit for Code for Denver.

There is no ego associated with a project, so it’s not a personal reflection on you or your interests if the problem isn’t a good fit. It’s entirely okay to do some research and determine that a project isn’t worth solving or not a good fit for CFD.

Try a lean canvas model

A lean canvas is a great way to lay out key components of your project success model so you can start testing your assumptions and get to building something customers want as fast as possible.

To create a free digital version of a lean canvas, go to Canvanizer. Alternatively, you can print this lean canvas

How to write a problem statement

Choose one of these two formats, and write down your problem:

• I believe [type of people] experience [type of problem] when doing [type of task]
• I believe [type of people] experience [type of problem] because of [limit or constraint]

You can have more than one problem statement, but no more than 3.

After signing in, I'm presented with a pop-up asking me to share information about the current trash and recycling services. I'm presented with two options: 1. Sure-I would love to help or 2. No thanks - Take me to my building's page

As a tenant, I would like to be able to enter my address so that I can determine if my building is already in the system.

As a landlord
when I click on a building's existing campaign page
I can enter how many units I have
and how much space I have for a receptacle
I hit calculate and see a price of recycling for my building

See if a copy of the Webinar is available

Pull in parcel line data from the City of Denver's and use it to cross-reference building location points against this parcel data. If multiple buildings fall within the parcel boundary, it can be assumed that these buildings have the same owner or are the same building and can be combined into one campaign.

As a property owner
when I click on FAQ on the homepage
I see a list of Questions which can be clicked to expand the answers beneath that particular question

Complete wireframe and begin to export

Create a feature that automatically searches through existing campaigns, and clears unused and idle campaigns that were likely created in error.

if:
No users
and
1 week old
then:
Delete

User's who try to sign up a building with 7 or less units will be alerted that they qualify for City provided service and directed to the City's website.

As an Ecocycle admin
I can see a dashboard on the site
which has a download PDF button to
receive the user emails and other information
in a PDF format
(might change)

Pick a solution

Which of the paper prototypes is your team most excited about?

• Decide as a team on the top 1 or 2 prototype(s).
• Add the solution(s) in Box 4 of your lean canvas.

Remember to ask yourself: Does this solution solve the problem (Box 1) for your customer (Box 2)?

Tenant support will carry more weight if identities are verified. We should explore the use of OAuth (google/facebook) to verify the identity of supporting tenants and display the verification to the landlord. Tenants will also have the option to support the campaign anonymously along side public supporters.

This hits on the philosophical issue of whether or not we want to protect the identity of tenants from their landlord. A few thoughts on why I believe we should disclose identity to the landlord:

1. A request for recycling is very reasonable. Tenants should not be concerned about retaliation as it is illegal and unlikely.

2. Landlords may not respect anonymous support as it is susceptible to fraudulent or repeat signatures. An anonymous count of supporters cannot be leveraged as strongly as a verified list to create change, and is more likely to be ignored.

3. The more personal the request, the more likely it will receive a response.

4. Public support will be voluntary. Tenants will have the option to remain anonymous, so providing the ability to verify and disclose identity will only benefit the strength of the request.

Please share your thoughts, philosophical or technical! I'll update the primary post as thoughts come in so we can weigh the pros and cons side by side.

Paper Prototypes

You should have several ideas from your brainstorming session.

• Group any similar ideas together.
• Take one idea (or group of ideas) per person and spend 5 minutes building a paper prototype.

How to build a paper prototype

It's simple! All you need is a piece of paper and something to write with to draw out your solution.

No one expects it to be pretty, don't worry! Add as much detail as you can around how your solution might look or work.

Brainstorm Solutions

• Using a timer, take 5 minutes to write down as many rough ideas on sticky notes as you can.
• Go around as a team and put your sticky notes on a wall as you say what you wrote.
• Group similar ideas together.

When you're finished, you're ready to move on to creating paper prototypes!

Pitch for Active Development

If you have gotten this far, and have completed all the previous cards you should be confident to move this into the Active Development phase and build a minimum viable product. (If you don't feel this way, it is totally fine to not move forward with the project)

To pitch for active development to the group, coordinate a time on the weekly agenda to take five minutes to update the group on the state of the project (this does not need to happen on standard 1st Monday of the month pitch night).

The purpose of this pitch is to present the state of the project, and pitch that it is worth putting the effort in to develop the MVP.

There are a few specific things that we'd love for you to preset:

• who is the partner organization
• who are the users
• MVP mockup
• show overview of research
  • what already exists
  • how do you know this solution will be valuable

Similar to the original pitch, there might be a call for further refinement, and a request to hold while work in progress is wrapped up before moving forward.

Hope to get your MVP developed shortly! 😄

As a user, if my address is already in the system,
I am taken to the property campaign page,
and I have the option to sign.

Test your Guesses

By now you should have:

• Boxes 1-4 filled out on your lean canvas
• A paper prototype of a solution

So far we've made a bunch of guesses. What problems we think exist, what customers we think have that problem, and what solution we think would solve it.

Before moving on, we need to test those assumptions with some potential customers.

• Spend 1 hour trying to find people who fit your customer segment and talk to them. Call your friends, find people on twitter, even pick up the phone and call businesses. The more people you can talk to, the better!

As a user
when I type in my new address on the homepage
I am taken to a page with a popup "You're the first to support recycling for your building!"
The popup has two buttons, "Okay! Let's do this" or "I want to learn more first"
If I click on "Okay!" then I see instructions within the popup on what information to fill in.
After I click 'Continue' I see the normal address campaign page.

Additional market research is required to ensure we are building a product that the consumer (or business) needs/wants.

Starting with designers, or makers.
Also what spectrum of materials they use and where they obtain.

Testing with Users

Great! You've created something for your project!

Now we want to get user feedback to make sure our assumptions match customer expectations. Hopefully by now, you have a relationship with a partner or partners to which you can throw your newly-developed software.

Be sure to put the product in front of them to how they use it, and incorporate feedback into your next iteration. Validate that you're solving the right problem, and check to make sure you've reduced any friction involved in the user experience. Pivot as necessary.

This cycle of refining after demoing should go a long way towards injecting life into the project. That should translate into the customer getting a lot of value from our efforts!

For more information on UX research, see this presentation given at one of our Code for Denver Meetups.

Copyright 2016 CA, Inc.

When I'm at the homepage and I enter my building's address, and press GO, if I'm the first one to search for my building's address, I'm presented with a popup giving two options: 1. Ok - Let's do this or 2. I want to learn more first.

As a user
when I enter my pre-existing address (already has a campaign page)
I see four boxes under the map with my address centered in it.
One box for No - Contact Info
One box for 150 - Number of units
One box for Yes - General Trash Disposal
One box for No - Recycling Available
Clicking on any one of these boxes allows me to edit the contents.
On click away, the information is stored.

I previously searched for my address and a new modal now pops up with nearby campaigns listed, or no nearby campaigns found. I'm prompted to select one if relevant or to create a new campaign for my building.

A link on the property page will allow users to download a PDF advertisement for their building's recycling campaign. The PDF template with pull in identifying information for the building (name/address) and serve as an advertisement that can be posted in the common area of the building.

As a user, after I enter my address and it has been populated in the DB, I would like to be able to create a petition to let the owner know I am interested in recycling at my location.

Define a testable Minimum Viable Product

An MVP is the smallest possible increment of your solution that delivers enough value for you to be able to ship it and learn from customers as quickly as possible.

• Agree as a team: from your paper prototype and lean canvas, what's the riskiest assumption you're making?

For example, if you were building a device that would automatically pour beer for you, the riskiest assumption might be technical - how do you know how much volume of beer to pour? If you were building AirBnB, the riskiest assumption wouldn't be tech, but instead would be trust - will users rent out a bedroom in their house to a stranger?

• Take your riskiest assumption and figure out the smallest increment you need to build to test that assumption.
• Take that increment and create cards on your board to represent what your team needs to get done in the next Sprint to build that iteration. Think about what it will take to test your MVP - it's not just about building something, it's about building something you can use to learn from as fast as possible.

This backlog of work can be used in your pitch too, to answer "What's next?"