Test idea for Debt Resistance UK (http://lada.debtresistance.uk/) hackathon, January 2017
The problem Debt Resistance UK are trying to highlight is with a type of loans from major banks to councils around the UK -- these loans have unfairly high rates of interest and which can increase over time in a way that councils cannot predict. See more at the link above.
It's a really complicated topic!
This is the basic prototype of the code for a site that takes a really different approach: showing the personal, local impact -- taking all the jargon out of it, simplifying the issue so it's easier to understand, making it emotive, reframing banks as loan sharks, connecting it back to your community.
SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
As this was for a one-day hackathon, it was only developed to a limited extent. These are some potential improvements/additions that could be made:
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Data for more councils (see below)
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Add a couple more human examples of what the money equates to so it's not only elderly care, e.g. something about children, something everyone uses (libraries or similar?) -- the result could be random or a slider could show you all of them in the results panel
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For each council, show logos of which banks are lending to them
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Improve how background images display on mobile
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Add Facebook and Twitter sharing -- ideally including creating on-the-fly a preview image with some/all of the results you get when you search for your council (this will be particularly helpful for Facebook sharing where a custom image will encourage clickthroughs)
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Add more compelling call(s) to action after you find out about your area, what could you actually do apart from sharing news of the problem? Is a political solution needed? Could people contact the banks who lend to their council? Or is it something fun/engaging to encourage greater awareness, e.g. a meme generator tool?
DATA
As Debt Resistance UK have a big job compiling data from around the country, there is only information for a smallish number of councils. You can get involved in helping them here: http://lada.debtresistance.uk/project/based-on-your-expertise/
A copy of the data used is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B_wprI2kA_pOT8R328vHPA3knKEWDjmf2bi5Ee04fE8/edit?usp=sharing
This is taken from from column H of this spreadsheet, compiled by another volunteer: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QdsNYadCVQ28xVaBrjMmJC7SNH9qoZSyRcTS5rcXVoA/edit#gid=0
As this is a demo site, the data has not been double-checked.