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Website Development Group

Page history last edited by Paul Crosland 13 years, 10 months ago

The Website Development Group is one of the Development Groups. 

 

Vision: A world where everyone can share anything and everything using whichever technology they choose.

Mission: This group is responsible for carrying out the technical tasks required by Freelending CIC, including the development of the freelender.org website. (The creation of the text content of the freelender.org website is the responsibility of the Marketing Group.)

Review of Aims for the Previous Quarter:

  • To create a front page of freelender.org which is engaging and inspiring.  Improvements were made
  • To make the freelender.org code open source. Achieved
  • To investigate how other technologies could be used to facilitate sharing. Other technologies were considered. In-depth investigation was not done.  There are currently insufficient team resources to carry forward new ideas

Aims for the Next Quarter:

  • To investigate migration to a webhost which can handle greater capacity, and migrate if that is the best option.
  • To implement Giving and Receiving.
  • To allow freelender.org to be used in Ireland and the USA, and ideally elsewhere.
  • To make other improvements to freelender.org as instructed by the Project Steering Group.

 

Contents of this page:

  1. Next Meeting - last week of July 2010 (details to follow, or contact us)
      1. Agenda Items
      1. Quarterly Agenda Items
      2. Priorities for Website Development
  2. Wiki Pages for which this development group is solely responsible:
  3. Pages for which this development group is jointly responsible:
      1. Wiki pages
  4. Links to External Websites
  5. Outstanding Actions
    1. Decisions Made
      1. 9th December 2009
      2. 9th November 2009
      3. 15th September 2009 (at Steering Group meeting)
      4. 7th September 2009

    Next Meeting - last week of July 2010 (details to follow, or contact us)

    Click here to get details of how to join the Networking Group Teleconference.

    (If these meeting arrangements do not suit and you want to be involved please use the contact form link here)

     

    Agenda Items

    1. Date of next meeting.
    2. Decisions made at previous meeting - are they a correct record?
    3. Actions outstanding from previous meetings.
    4. PC: Proposal for a default search term in BS7 -' No'
    5. After PC has added his items, look at categorisation of items / services (see link for background info).
    6. EJ: Resolve how best to suggest new website text.  Consider using mockingbird, a free wireframing tool.
    7. EJ: With other organisations about to join the teleconferences, consider renaming this group more accurately to the Technology Group.
    8. Website Hosting, site resilience.
    9. Review user feedback about website, and determine required actions.
    10. Review the possibilities for the freelender-org home page.
    11. Review Suggested Website Text,  and determine required actions.
    12. Priorities for website development beyond release 1.0 - review the list below.
    13. [ Delivery dates.  Currently no dates for future releases. ]

     

    Quarterly Agenda Items

    1. Hosting arrangements

      - automatic notification by text/email if the site goes down

      - putting infrastructure in place for alternative hosting, e.g. at www.freelend.org, for use in case of failure

    2. Open source policy.  Issues include:

      - would allow people to discover and exploit security issues

      - precludes sale of freelender application for fund-raising.

     

    Priorities for Website Development

    Priorities for Freelending CIC:

    • user profile: add weblink
    • give items away
    • clubs
    • user profile: add photo
    • saved searches + email people when an item in a saved search is added
    • give lender's telephone number to borrower when a request is made

    Possible priorities for funders:

    • multiple languages, especially Welsh

     

    Wiki Pages for which this development group is solely responsible:

    FrontPage (date of next meeting)

    Website Development (The Technical pages)

    Website Release Schedule

    Website Documentation

    Future Functionality

    Internationalisation

    Item and Service Categories

    Searching Tips innovative ways to use the site

    How to make Webpages more accessible

    user feedback

    web docs from other sites

     

    Pages for which this development group is jointly responsible:

    Wiki pages

    Suggested Website Text (responsibility shared with the Marketing Group).

    The freelender-org home page (responsibility shared with the Marketing Group).

     

     

    Links to External Websites

    • www.freelender.org, the live site.
    • bugs.freelender.org, where issues with the freelender.org website are tracked. Anyone can login and report a bug they have noticed by logging in with Username 'guest', password 'guest', and then clicking on 'New Issue'.
    • mockup.freelender.org, the Freelender mock-up site, which was used to prototype the website prior to implementation.

     

     

    Outstanding Actions

     

    From 9th December 2009:

    1. EJ to implement 'giveaway' tags & functionality by the end of 2009 2010 Q1. 

    From 9th November 2009:

    1. PC: Create wiki versions of one or two website pages to research this as a mechanism for people to make suggested updates to the website. Ideally one functionally simple page (e.g. home page, help page), and one more complex page (i.e. a page with a form, such as the Register page).
    2. EJ: Add 50 items, aiming to take one hour, with high quality descriptions/comments not a requirement. Time how long it takes, and record any views on item categorisation.
    3. PC: Add 15 items with high quality descriptions/comments and time how long it takes.
    4. EJ: Add 15 items with high quality descriptions/comments and time how long it takes. DONE 1/12/09.  It took 43 minutes
    5. PC: Add 50 items, aiming to take one hour, with high quality descriptions/comments not a requirement. Time how long it takes, and record any views on item categorisation. DONE -55 minutes (not too rushed)
    6. EJ: Test the website using IE6. As part of this, test requesting an item (which has caused a crash in the past).  Add any problems found to CodeTrack. DONE 20/11/09
    7. PC: Test the website using IE8. As part of this, test requesting an item (which has caused a crash in the past).  Add any problems found to CodeTrack. DONE 
    8. PC: Add feedback from Mike to User Feedback page. -added to private doc DONE
    9. EJ: Add lack of item comments to User Feedback page.  DONE 9/11/09
    10. EJ: Add google analytics to website.  One aim of this is to determine the 'background number of hits' the site receives, i.e. the number of hits from search engines and other bots, before we start publicising. DONE 11/11/09
    11. EJ: Review and publish the number of hits received by the sites, using the stats provided by the web host.  DONE 9/11/09 - see Google document 'Freelender Steering Group' / Website visitor stats.
    12. EJ: Update home page, using proposed words from all sources, including Paul's response to Mike to make "quick win" improvements.  DONE 27/11/09

       

    From Steering Group 7th/15th September 2009:

    1. EJ/PC: Ensure all help text on freelender.org is reviewed before full release. [This action should really be moved to the Marketing Group]
    2. EJ: Send email to admin@freelender.org whenever an item with value >£100 is added or updated.  DONE 17/9/09
    3. EJ: Add optional fields to Registration page: Second part of postcode [not done, to be added in 2.0], How did you hear about freelender (television, newspaper/magazine, Google / search engine, other website, electronic newsletter, freelender event/stall, freelender poster/leaflet, word of mouth.  More details (e.g. which magazine, website, etc).  DONE 17/9/09

     

     

    From 7th September 2009:

    1. PC: Recheck bug 2 (items visible when on holiday) and update CodeTrack with results.
    2. EJ: Check out 1&1 as a possible web host.
    3. EJ: Consider how to make it easier to find Advanced Search when using the quick search area. DONE 8/12/09 i.e. the idea was added to the freelender-org home page.
    4. PC/EJ: Discuss policies for open source and dispersed team working.  DONE 8/9/09

     

    Decisions Made

     

    9th December 2009

    1. Project Steering Group will look at CSS stylesheets from Web Developer magazine.
    2. Project Steering Group will look at resizing text isssue.

    9th November 2009

    1. Strategy for Lending of Services to be discussed by Proect Steering Group, rather than Website Development Group.

     

    15th September 2009 (at Steering Group meeting)

    1. The Second part of postcode field on the Registration page is to be an optional field with no explanation on the page as to why it's asked for.  It will not be displayed to other members, but this will not be said on the page either. Decision taken at 5/10/09 meeting: The second part of the postcode will be added to the registration page when Clubs are implemented in a non-postcode way.

    7th September 2009

    1. Freelender will not use a marquee on 17th October 2009.  Targeting clubs is more important and Paul has a wedding to go to!

     

     

     

     

    Comments (1)

    Paul Crosland said

    at 7:32 am on Jul 28, 2010

    Dear freelender (name)
    We're glad to see you offering something on the freelender.org site. We hope not only that it will be shared with others, but also that you will find more of what you want locally. As well as doing this on freelender.org, three other favourite sharing sites for doing this are listed below. However, just offering things on websites rarely is enough to get the attention of your neighbours. We'd like to support you in getting more sharing going in your local community. To hear more about how we might support you in generating a more sharing society around you:
    1) Why not listen-in to one of our Freelending Meetings (on the phone or in person); networking meetings are held regularly - see 'the freelender community' for more info
    2) Phone or text Paul Crosland (co-director, Freelending Community Interest Company) and Paul will call you back to discuss how you can get more of what you want from your neighbours. (tel Zero780 70 66 202)
    If you need more info about Paul before calling this is at www.additionalinfo.blogspot.com

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