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HANDI Web Platform Outline Requirement

HANDI currently running with a temporary web site built using Wordpress and this need to be replaced with a rich web platform that can better meet our immediate needs and be easily extended to meet future requirements. This document deals with member/public facing services. There are some additional functionality we might want for internal management. We have selected Drupal to build this platform as this open source content Management system would seem capable of meeting all of our needs

General Requirements

Below are some general requirements that apply to all of the different functions that need to be supported by the web platform. In all cases it would appear that Drupals architecture and philosophy will help us meet these requirements.

1.1

Design

The site needs to have a contemporary visual design consistent with an organisation that aims to promote visual and user interface design We need to be seen to practice what we preach. The design need to be consistent across the site and with HANDIs corporate image in other media. Drupal Themes should make this straightforward

1.2

Ease of Content Maintenance

There are likely to be many content owners for different parts of the site. They should be able to manage the content for which they are responsible with minimal web editing or Drupal skills. As a CMS this is a basic feature of Drupal.

1.3

Sophisticated Access Control


Public Members Subscribers Promoters HANDI Executive and Officers

It is likely that there will be at least five classes of external users of the platform, possibly more

Each will have different privileges in most areas of the site. Different functional areas of the site and classes of content will be managed by different individuals. These will include content mangers (responsible for content) and administrators (responsible for administration of functionality) as well as site technical and visual design

authorities with site wide responsibility for technical and visual design. Drupal has support for flexible and sophisticated access control.

1.4

Localisation

We want to build a UK site using British English, UK vocabulary, formats and conventions. Drupal has comprehensive tools for localisation and multiple language support so it should be easy to localise any non-UK stuff in the Drupal core or modules.

1.5

Content Types

We will need to be able to handle still images, video and audio in relation to a number of the specific requirements below. We may wish to provide some video and audio content as downloadable podcasts for use offline as well as online. Drupal has core capabilities and modules to support these requirements.

1.6

User Comments

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2.1

Specific Requirements
Static Content

This section lists the specific functionality requirements. In rough order of priority.

Static pages about HANDI taking much of the static content currently on the Wordpress site We need to consider further how we might like to extend static content

2.2

News and Blogs

We need a news section where we can include latest news from HANDI and also a facility for selected members to blog. The current functionality of the Wordpress sites works well here and we need to integrate similar functionality into the platform

2.3

Member Registration and Database

These needs to replace and extend the registration and member management currently provided using survey monkey and Ewans cobbled up Access database. We will need to do further work to develop the detail of this requirement, but as a base the platform needs to: Allow user to register and maintain their own account information and profiles. Registering as a basic member should be automatic (with email validation) some other classes of membership may require admin approval and some classes may require payment which we should be able to do online. Might also want to provide a facility for members to make donations.

Enable user administration and communication. E.g. mailshots, invites, renewals, welcome messages, notifications

2.4

Discussion Forum

We need to be able to provide a multiple threaded discussion forums. Access to and privileges in particular forums may depend on user class and some rights may be subject to admin approval. User should be able to set up and manage email notifications in relation to forums and ideally should be able to operate entirely by email or entirely online (or in some hybrid way) to match their preferred way of working.

2.5

Knowledge Repository

We need a place where we can maintain expert guidance on the various aspects of app development and deployment. It seems that a wiki approach might be best allow authorised contributors to submit, and then collaborator maintain and improve such material. Write access to the wiki may need to be subject to approval by content section owners on a section by section basis. The repository needs to be structured so that it can be easily browsed and support easy searching

2.6

Dating

To help people look for partners. Linking people with ideas to developers to people with special expertise to people with business models/finance.

2.7

Directory

A directory on which people can register app, tools, services, standards etc. Probably some of this links to Dating while some to the knowledge repository

2.8

Questions and Answer

A mechanism for people to ask questions and for others to provide answers and improve answers provided by others. Maybe with some form of reputation management like the way Stack Exchange http://stackexchange.com/

2.9

Document repository

Somewhere to store and share documents probably. Needs to be browsable, linkable and searchable

2.10 Events Management


Facilities like event www.eventbrite.co.uk, probably happy to stick with using an external provider, but there may some value in integration with other stuff. E.g to make it easier to

police member only events or special member pricing Might also be better to have own facilities to avoid having to pay commission to external providers for chargeable events.

2.11 Source code repository


Not sure we need this we could just use external provider like source forge

Development Approach

Drupal allows us to separate various aspect of web platform design and creation so that different individuals/teams can lead on different aspect e.g. Visual design UI design Content creation Embedded applications Etc

We need to confirm this decomposition and identify people to lead in each. Some sort of Hack Day approach might be appropriate to build a version 0.9 of the platform. Which would allow us to get together to refine the requirement and build a prototype. However, for this to be successful some initial preparation will be required to clarify these requirements and build a 0.1 version skeleton ahead of the hack on which we could work. Some further work to flesh out and model some of the requirements above would also be helpful A successful Hack Day would require people with expertise in the various aspects above including some experienced Drupal developers and those without Drupal experience would need to undertake some familiarisation and training ahead of the Hack to enable them to participate effectively. Work would also be required to identify which parts of the Drupal core and contributed modules are the best candidates to meet our initial requirements

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