Community Activities Hub

A website that reinvents the concept of 'community spirit'

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Inspiration

Loneliness is on the rise (source). A report by the ONS in 2020 shows that the sense of community felt in Britons was on the decline (source).

Whilst the adage that 'correlation does not equals causation' is one that is oft repeated, our inspiriation behind this project stems from the marrying of the two concepts.

We believe that reinventing the idea of a community notice board would help to restore a sense of community spirit and also help to combat loneliness in vulnerable groups.

What it does

Conceptually, the website aims to connect social groups that are at risk of isolation and that would otherwise rarely have a channel of communication.

To ensure security and a level of privacy, institutions such as care homes, universities, schools e.t.c. nominate a member of staff to act as the 'Community Leader'. This Community Leader is responsible for creating events and managing members of their communities.

The Community Leader adds a member via. their first and last names and the website generates a memorable personal username and a randomised 6 digit password for the member. It would then be the responsbility of the Community Leader to distribute and manage these personal details of each of their community members'.

This is to add another level of security to the website (as only trusted Community Leaders can add members) and to make the website more accessible as members are not required to have an email address and Community Leaders can (securely) access the usernames and passwords of their Community Members at their wish.

The core concept and homepage of the website is centered around the events system. Community Leaders will post events and all their relevant details that are displayed to Community Members (from any community) based on location.

For example, if the Community Leader at the University of Bath is hosting a public event, they can create an event post on the website that is displayed to Community Members of a Carehome in Twerton, for example.

Community Members (and Leaders) can favourite, comment and share events. Events can also be saved for later reference. The website also (will) maintain a calander for each Community Member noting key events that they have saved.

How we built it

The website was built using pure HTML, Javascript and CSS.

Challenges we ran into

Wrangling CSS code to output a desired design is challenging, regardless of experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to make a lot of progress within the 24 hours whilst maintaining a (semi)-healthy sleep schedule.

A lot of thought was considered into making the website aesthetically pleasing whilst simultaneously accessible for the wide age bracket that would be interacting with the website. To accomplish this the CSS had to be very specific to ensure elements were positioned and appear as desired.

The database implementation allows for logging in and signing up as both a Community Leader and a Community Member. The username and password generation for the Community Members works as expected, and the password is hashed for security.

What we learned

Whilst many programming and development skills were learnt and developed over the 24 hours; it is our creative skills that were built on the most.

Conceiving a concept and creating a UI that is user-centric and pleasing to the eye was one of the most challenging parts of the project, but one of the things that are we have made the most progress on.

What's next for Community Activities Hub

A key element to continue in development is creating Sessions and Authentication for users; ensuring that users see all the details that they need to and that this data is saved and loaded securely.

Further accessibility for the visually impaired and elderly is an aspect that would improve the website.

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