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Project Plan
Last updated: Feb 11
Issue tracking is on GitHub Issues. To be added to this project as a collaborator, message Luigi on Slack.
Slack chat is in #homestead-application. Sign up to the Code for Atlanta Slack if you're not yet on it.
We're partnering with Atlanta Legal Aid Society, which helps low-income people meet basic needs through free civil legal services. Most homeowners in Georgia qualify for a property tax homestead exemption. However, older people often do not apply for the benefit, as they're unaware or unable to follow the online process.
Here's the current online process for Fulton County. Before working on this project, imagine yourself going through the process and figuring out how to apply for the homestead exemption.
We're very much inspired by GetCalFresh, a better way for residents of California to apply for SNAP (food stamps). GetCalFresh is a Digital Assister. It helps the applicant navigate a previously-difficult and time-consuming process. It presents the applicant with a significantly better user experience than what already exists. Similarly, this project will:
- Present an accessible, mobile-friendly, secure web form as a series of easy-to-follow steps.
- Guide the user through the process of determining their Parcel ID.
- Allow the user to upload their documentation (pictures or scans of their drivers license and vehicle registration).
- Use a background job to send off an email with attachments to the correct Fulton county email address.
A typical user of this application:
- Is probably older and retired
- May have a disability like poor vision or blindness
- Is on a cheap Android phone
- Does not use a computer regularly
As such, we are taking an accessibility-first approach to this project. We will ensure that the user experience is fully accessible for those with poor vision and blindness. The HTML markup must be maximally-compatible with screen readers. The color contrast between visual elements should be sufficiently high.
For styles, we will use the U.S. Web Design Standards. Providing CSS/SCSS to make web pages look modern and trustworthy, the standards incorporate best practices on accessibility (a11y). There's a static mockup of the homestead application as a single page using the U.S. Web Design Standards.
Because we're asking for personally-identifiable information (PII), we must follow web app security best practices at every step of development. We will use HTTPS for everything and data collection will be kept to a minimum. When we do collect sensitive data, we will encrypt it.
We're going to be using Nuxt.js, a framework for building universal Vue.js applications.
We'd also like to explore building the app on the JAMstack. Can the Nuxt app be hosted as as a static website that talks to some external back-end API? If so, let's try using Firebase to host it.