About this site
Code for Charlottesville brings together coders, designers, data analysts, researchers, and community partners to work on projects with local nonprofits and governmental agencies.
We are a local chapter of Code for America, a national nonprofit dedicated to civic tech and volunteerism.
Code for Charlottesville launched in September 2019, and has partnered with the Legal Aid Justice Center (hyperlink: https://www.justice4all.org/), the Charlottesville Fire Department (hyperlink: https://www.charlottesville.gov/222/Fire), and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights (hyperlink: https://www.charlottesville.gov/665/Human-Rights). Our volunteers are Charlottesville residents who work for local companies, residents who work remotely for other companies, people who live elsewhere who connect with us using slack and zoom, and UVA and PVCC students. We provide opportunities for community members and students to meet and get to know each other while working on meaningful projects together.
There are many roles for volunteers, and we need help from people with coding experience, and from people with design, communication, and research skills. Our projects involve data analysis, front-end and back-end software development, UI/UX design, policy research, and community organizing.
One of our guiding principles is that the tech team should work within the community we serve, and we work to meet the real needs of that community.
We are always in need of help! Even if you are not a tech type, we can still have opportunities for you to contribute. So come by and become part of a movement to improve our community.
Site Design Notes
The US Web Design System (USWDS) is a great national resource for design work, and is leveraged by hundreds of websites nationally and internationall. USWDS provides several drop-in plug-and-play theming layers for Drupal 8 and we have opted to use https://www.drupal.org/project/uswds_base to start with
- Pre-bake some ADA compliance and WCAG constructs off-the-shelf.
- Strong documentation
- An active community https://chat.18f.gov/ - I use the USWDS-public channel.
By starting with an "Accessible First" approach to design and development we are able to move forward with greater confidence and fewer design distractions while aligning ourselves with a nationally recognized standard