JRF CONNECT

Responsive Web Application / 2016

The Jackie Robinson Foundation's mission is to address the achievement gap in higher-education while facilitating career development among the America's underserved populations. The Foundation honors Jackie Robinson's legacy of humanitarianism and civic-engagement by providing academic and professional resources such as scholarships and mentorship to their scholars across the country. We were tasked with creating a community site for their scholars that contained three sections: a scholar-to-scholar private discussion forum, an ask-a-mentor discussion forum, and a news and bulletin section. An intensive search of discussion platforms led to a rigorous customization of Discourse. By grouping scholars, mentors, and staff separately and then creating discussion category (and sub-category) permissions accordingly, the experience of each user group is tailored to the three sections.

Jump On In

A clean responsive landing page allowing users to jump into content. The scholar-only discussion forum is a safe and private place for scholars to voice their thoughts and provide peer-to-peer mentorship. Within the 'Ask A Mentor' section scholars can tap into an exclusive network of professionals for academic or career advice. 'New/Bulletins' are broken down into three sub-categories, one for each user group.

Navigating the Discussion

Users can navigate discussion threads by latest post, color-coded categories, or trending tags. Categories range from campus life to politics, and users can follow a specific category or thread to receive notifications when new posts are made.

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
–Jackie Robinson

Robust Threads

Conversation threads allow for robust media uploads, user tagging, liking, and flagging. Users can also fully customize their notification settings.