Imagine that you are a person on government benefits, and you get a raise. You're making more money, and that's great! But there's an income cutoff for the benefits you receive, and now that your income is higher, you don't make the cutoff. Even though you're making more money, your situation is worse. Some of your benefits drop to nothing, or almost nothing. You've fallen off "the cliff".
Case managers at Project Hope see this happen to their clients, but they have a hard time making quantifiable predictions about cliff effects. They're trained to handle their clients' problems on the ground - they don't have the time or resources to navigate the complex web of policies behind government benefit programs, and they may not have the technical skills to translate those policies into models. But we do.
A web-based app that case managers can use to model individual clients' benefits. The app will take in data from the client, calculate their current and future benefit levels, and display the results.
As of now, we're building in Javascript/HTML/CSS.
Last week, we:
- developed a user persona to help us understand our case managers
- built the first version of an HTML form to take in clients' information
We operate as two main teams - Technical and UX. Technical is focused on building the engine behind our app, while UX uses our knowledge about case managers and clients to shape the app's design and functionality. A third team, Admin, appears as needed - they do whatever else needs to be done to ensure the project runs smoothly.
You are free to join whichever team appeals to you, or switch between them - it's up to you! We come from a wide range of backgrounds, tech and non-tech: whatever your skillset, you are welcome here.
Ask our project lead Isaac (isaac_chansky) about anything at all, especially any questions related to our collaboration with Project Hope/the Center for Social Policy.
If you're interested in hearing more about what we've done so far, Jonathan (jonathan), Emily (emily_w), and Annie (annielacourt) have been around since the beginning.
For UX stuff, chat with Kathy (kaaathy) or Amy (aderdzinski). For code stuff, chat with Drew (drewlove) and the rest of the technical team.