In terms of next steps to take the project forwards, the next immediate step would be to take it back to the community groups of Walker. As the proposal suggests the website should be self-reliant, it depends heavily on their input, which has already been positive. Something akin to a partnership of willing Walker community groups, who can then streamline ideas into a functional mock-up of the scheme. This would allow them to collectively apply for grant funding, increasing the chances of funding being approved.<\/p>\n
Based off user test feedback, a \u2018What\u2019s New\u2019 section would also be desirable to allow users to identify changes \u2013 such as new events, for example. Whilst not the main target audience, there is a wish to include features incentivising children to use the site. Businesses could be encouraged to advertise their activities and job training opportunities too. Comments on the noticeboard should be approved before being posted online as a safeguard against abuse of this feature.<\/p>\n
Long-term, if we were to pursue this idea we would include a feedback system to encourage constructive criticism \u2013 both positive and negative \u2013 on events, which would allow the event creators to make changes going forwards. This can only be a positive as it allows community groups to improve what events, services and classes they offer and to make it more tailored around the needs of the community. If their offerings are more attractive, it will potentially attract more use and traffic, both to these and the website itself. A more efficient use of funding towards these services means that there is more available to improve elsewhere. Additionally, if they can be shown to be working this will potentially help towards further future funding.<\/p>\n
Expanding on the volunteering scheme as the website becomes more well-known and established is also important as a method of encouraging further volunteering. A method of doing this would be to improve rewards as increased site usage and funding allows, possibly to include incentives such as shopping vouchers or vouchers towards education classes. Giving people a route into work at the end of volunteering would be a major advancement in improving the lives of people in Walker. Self-help is a key aspect of what our interviewees suggested would be successful motivation tool.<\/p>\n
Branching out into a newsletter would allow for those without access to the internet \u2013 around 40% \u2013 to see information on the community groups, events and volunteering information organised into one place. It wouldn\u2019t be as comprehensive as the website, but would remove the major problem of lack of total coverage from the website solution concept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In terms of next steps to take the project forwards, the next immediate step would be to take it back to the community groups of Walker. As the proposal suggests the website should be self-reliant, it depends heavily on their input, which has already been positive. Something akin to a partnership of willing Walker community … Continue reading Week 10: Where Next?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-team-5","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}