Database
In order for the app to work, it needs to be able to get the right information to the user when the user calls it. To do this, I need a database with all of the information that I want the app to be able to access. I started with the information for the local leaders pages, since the information needed for those pages is very uniform (I made a wireframe template that all of them will just plug information into). I found out pretty quickly that copying information from around the internet into little excel cells takes a really long time, but I have gotten almost full information for the city council and school board so far. I still need to dig up head shots for the city council people, but I might wait to do that until I contact them later down the line to ask their permission to put them in the app in the first place. I also have to do all of the county stuff and some more city officials as well. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to include state officials. Including them might distract the focus too much from local leaders.
One last note: I might end up making a website to start and then working from that to an app. It might be easier to flesh out all my ideas in a simpler, easier to mess around with environment before I add the extra layer of confusion of app development to it. I probably will talk about how that is going in my next blog post.
