Features

Current and Desired Features

"Current" means as of October 2015. Some features are already present, and may or may not be desirable in the future. Other features were requested in user testing or discovered in a competitor analysis of other municipalities' open budget sites.

All Pages

• display OBO branding (e.g., logo)
• display affiliation with Open Oakland etc.
• enable navigation
• facilitate accessibility & SEO
• give mobile device users a first-class experience
• enable users to discover our Twitter stream
• enable users to find this GitHub repo

Home Page

• display latest #OAKbudget tweets
• display latest news or blog article (possibly just title and excerpt)
• briefly tell user what OBO is
• invite users to explore the budgetary cycle
• invite users to explore and create data visualizations (this is probably the CTA for the home page)
• give users an overview of what they can do on the site
• make it clear which budget is currently in effect
• show some data from the current budget
• empower users to print this visualization in a print-friendly format
• empower users to share this visualization on social media
• show trending topics form user searches
• when there is an active budget process, highlight the current status and latest information

Data Visualization Pages

• empower users to print any visualization in a print-friendly format
• empower users to share any visualization on social media
• provide users with several pre-fabricated, highly interactive visualizations, such as a cash flow diagram
• provide users with the means to create their own visualizations

Budgetary Cycle Pages

• provide users with a way to explore the budgetary cycle
• tell users where we are in current budget cycle
• tell users when is the next city council meeting
• invite users to participate by voting on budget items

News or Blog

• provide users with stories related to Oakland's budget

About and other static pages

• provide users with up-to-date content

Other or Not Sure

• enable users to subscribe to different levels of notifications
• show "actuals data" as they are updated monthly
• provide users with a Glossary of Budget Terms
• provide users with analysis of budget
• engage users with a Balance the Budget challenge

Forkability

• take steps to make it easier to fork for other governments, like placing Oakland-specific attributes in a config file, inline documentation, etc.