ishu: find your cause

In addition to the post I did on “Downloaded: The True Story of the Internet,” I have another Digital Media assignment to post here. This assignment was to design an app that had something to do with the topic of our blogs. Well, not actually design in the programming sense.  Our instructions were to describe its functions and draw a mock-up of at least two of its screens.

Try not to mock my mock-up y’all…I reached into the depths of my soul and pulled out every artistic tendency I could muster, but the end result is still what you see before you:

Ta-da!

As you can see, the app is called Ishu (pronounced “issue”). My idea was to include several activist (or just curious constituent) resources in one place. So after pressing “Enter,” you are taken to a scroll-down list of every major category of political issues (there are more that I could think of, but I only allocated so much space.) Then, after selecting one by clicking on the downward arrow, a drop-down sub menu opens, allowing you to choose from three options:

• Find – Allows you to search for your local officials by entering your zip code (pictured in the third screen in my drawing). Once you submit that information and are viewing your state politicians, you can follow an additional link to a summary of the voting histories of your senators and representatives, with their contact information.
• Read – Performs a google search of the latest news developments concerning the political issue selected..
• Sign – Gives a current list of petitions concerning the topic, from major petition sites such as moveon.org and whitehouse.gov, with options to share to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

As I said, this is a preliminary idea, and honestly I don’t possess the tech skills to know if this is even feasible. However, it’s something I would use personally, and it relates to my over-arching theme of political issues, so for the purposes of this class I certainly hope it’s sufficient!