
Show HN: AskIzzy – a mobile website for homeless people - mrmondo
https://askizzy.org.au
======
sergiotapia
Great idea, but one suggestion would be to make the site as light as humanly
possible. Homeless people probably don't have stable or fast connections.
Every kilobyte counts.

This file is 66KB out of the total 137KB:
[https://cloud.typography.com/7948374/730248/css/fonts.css](https://cloud.typography.com/7948374/730248/css/fonts.css)
\- I would remove it and just use a:

    
    
        font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif;

~~~
mrmondo
Absolutely, could not agree more - we already have an open ticket for this
actually! Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Related presentation with additional information on data-limited mobile users:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jmqsq2OQjc&index=3&list=PLN...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jmqsq2OQjc&index=3&list=PLNYkxOF6rcICcHeQY02XLvoGL34rZFWZn)

------
danielheath
Main dev on the project here (I work for rea-group.com who run
www.realestate.com.au, but they've given me a years secondment to the
project).

Back in 2013 a team at our hackday implemented the precursor to this app, and
the leadership team were super impressed.

It's been amazing working so closely with the sector (we meet/do user testing
with representatives from lots of organisations).

This is my first project with react / es7, but I've built a few rich client
webapps before. React is definitely the best developer experience I've had
with client-side frameworks.

~~~
gaelian
A bit of data feedback for you, getting to this page on your app:

[https://askizzy.org.au/category/have-your-
say/in/2601-Austra...](https://askizzy.org.au/category/have-your-
say/in/2601-Australian%20Capital%20Territory/)

Suggests that the Commonwealth Ombudsman does not have an office in Canberra.
They actually do though[1].

Cool project, good luck with it!

1\. [http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/pages/contact-us/our-
offices/ind...](http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/pages/contact-us/our-
offices/index.php)

~~~
jscn
Thanks for the feedback, gealian! I've let our data team know about the
problem.

------
telecuda
Idea: Put free WiFi hotspots in homeless areas (SSID: AskIzzy) that go
directly to (and are limited to) your site when the browser launches.

Remember that people often have phones but are out of data/minutes when they
need help the most.

~~~
mrmondo
Great idea re: the SSID - Melbourne is actually currently rolling out free
WiFi for the entire city, also most of the populated areas around town offer
free wireless from nearby shops.

My only issues with free wireless hotspots is that they tend to be unencrypted
which can be dangerous, however if you're in need of assistance this might be
worth the risk.

If you're interested in what kind of access homeless and at-risk people have
to the internet in Australia this is quite a useful paper:
[https://accan.org.au/files/Grants/homelessandconnected/Homel...](https://accan.org.au/files/Grants/homelessandconnected/Homeless_and_Connected_web.pdf)

*Edit: Also we have free wifi if you're near our office building or the near by train station which is an area with a lot of homeless people, from your idea around the SSID name - we'll do that here and spin it up this morning - so thanks for that!

~~~
vertis
I could still see small hotspots being a useful way of spreading knowledge
about the project. You could then also make in window stickers for businesses
that offer the service to also promote it.

~~~
mrmondo
Yeah good idea about the window stickers! I've passed that on to the PM.

~~~
rbobby
If libraries offer free wifi and/or pc's then some stickers for them might
also be a good idea.

------
osipovas
Definitely a good to have service. Definitely feel that updating data is the
biggest challenge. We have something similar in my hometown based of Edmonton
based on linksf.

[https://github.com/zendesk/linksf](https://github.com/zendesk/linksf)

[http://linkyeg.ca/](http://linkyeg.ca/)

~~~
mrmondo
Thank you for the links - we'll check them out!

The other thing we're currently concentrating on is improving / tuning the
quality of the search results, when you have a large, complex data set that
feeds to many applications it requires careful consideration and ongoing
reevaluation to tune the results and to make sure what people are expecting to
find with their queries.

We can release to production via our CI / CD pipeline as often as we need, so
if any adjustments are required outside of the data itself it's trivial for us
to release new code (images), on one of our other apps we were releasing to
production over 40 times a day as features and fixes were developed.

~~~
chris_wot
Do you have a git repository?

~~~
danielheath
[https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy/](https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy/)

~~~
chris_wot
Awesome :-)

------
e40
Every city in the world needs something like this.

------
jacalata
I let it find my location and now I can't change it, so I keep getting "Sorry,
I couldn't do this search. Could not find a location matching "Seattle,
Washington""

~~~
mrmondo
Hi Jacalata,

The service is not currently live in the US, we're an Australian based
organisation as is our target audience at present.

~~~
jacalata
No, I get that. What i was pointing out was that once it had a location, I
couldn't change it (it never asked me again).

~~~
jscn
Hey jacalata, thanks for pointing this out. I've reproduced the issue as best
I can, and AFAICT you should see a link on that page which says "Change you
answers".

Clicking it should display a list of the answers you've chosen, and the top
one should be your location. Clicking _that_ should let you change your
location.

If that doesn't work, drop me a line at jcrompton@infoxchange.org -- I'd love
to get enough info from you to properly reproduce the bug so we can fix it.

Thanks!

~~~
jfaat
I don't think it's a bug, It took me a while to realize that "Change your
answers" is how I change my location too. Perhaps the wording could be changed
to make that more clear :)

~~~
mrmondo
Testers notified and a ticket has been logged to investigate, thanks again :)

~~~
jacalata
Yep, it just didn't occur to me that would allow me to change my location as
well.

------
jscn
I'm a developer at Infoxchange, and we're actually looking for a senior dev to
join our Melbourne team. Development of the Ask Izzy app was a collaboration
between our team here and REA group, which goes to show the kind of thing you
get to be a part of at Infoxchange.

In Melbourne, we have a small team working on a number of projects with
Python, Django, Docker, Elasticsearch and React.js. We run some very modern
tech, and we work really closely with our amazing ops team and testers.

If that sounds like your cup of tea, we'd love to talk to you! There's an ad
for the position with more detail up on LinkedIn:
[https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/112633872](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/112633872)
or if you prefer, you can email recruitment@infoxchange.org

~~~
mrmondo
I've been Ops lead at Infoxchange for over 3 years now, I never thought I'd
stay at an organisation for that long. I truly _love_ my job, it's the first
time in my life that I wake up on a Monday morning actually wanting to go to
work. The people are fantastic, the organisational ethics are real and
transparent and there's little to no bureaucracy.

~~~
chris_wot
I guess this is worth a punt: I'm in Sydney and currently out of work. I've
got experience with a lot of languages and I learn pretty quickly, in fact I'm
currently working on refactoring the Libreoffice codebase.

I'm looking for part time work, and frankly a lower salary doesn't worry me
even slightly as I want to focus on looking after my kids and spend more time
with my wife... You wouldn't have any part time work going? I'm a dedicated
worker who values quality code and practices.

Hopefully this isn't too inappropriate asking on HN!

~~~
mrmondo
Chris, completely fine to ask here, What are you Python skills like? If Python
isn't your main skillset is there another language you're proficient at?

Check out one of jobs we're hiring for here:
[https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/112633872?trk=jobs_home_...](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/112633872?trk=jobs_home_saved_jobs)

Even if you don't quite fit into that description certainly email
recruitment@infoxchange.org , say that your saw the post here and give some
information about yourself!

~~~
chris_wot
My Python skills are limited, but that's never stopped me before :-) I've got
decent skills in Perl (yeah, ancient but Perl is under appreciated!), Ruby has
always been an interest of mine... I guess my main skill is I'm a rapid
learner.

I'll have a look at the link - thanks! Will shoot over an email once I'm home.

Regardless of the outcome though, it's impressive what you guys are doing. I
love that you are doing something to help the homeless :-)

~~~
mrmondo
Oh great, I think we'd love to speak to you. We do have one Perl app that's
still quite heavily used actually...

------
vertis
I'm so very proud to have been involved in this in a small way.

I work for realestate.com.au (REA Group), and we've been involved for around 2
years now in one way or another. This has included an REA employee joining the
project for a year, and further back a development team of 6 spending a full
month working on the front end.

If anyone is interested Malcolm Turnbull's speech from the launch is here:
[https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-01-29/remarks-askizzy-
launc...](https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-01-29/remarks-askizzy-launch-
melbourne)

Edit: Grammar

~~~
chris_wot
I honestly have to say that some of the stuff coming out of realestate.com.au
is pretty amazing. I mean, I was frankly amazed at the quality of your tech
blog... I mean, a blog about category theory? I was definitely not expecting
that, but it explains why I was actually able to find a house I wanted to buy
from the website.

Keep up the good work. Turnbull talks about innovation, but it looks like you
guys are actually doing it. I tip my hat to you, and I honestly don't do that
lightly!

------
arsalanb
Idea: Try getting this onboard the internet.org program by Facebook. This is
literally the only way I think internet.org could be useful without raising a
controversy.

------
mrmondo
... And it was launched by Australia's Prime Minister

I work @infoxchange as the operations lead, when I first heard the idea of a
website or app for people that have found or are worried about finding
themselves homeless in Australia I really didn't think it made sense - until I
saw the stats showing that almost 80% of homeless people in Australia have
regular access to a smart phone and data either via a cellular provider or
free WiFi (Source: University of Sydney paper:
[https://accan.org.au/files/Grants/homelessandconnected/Homel...](https://accan.org.au/files/Grants/homelessandconnected/Homeless_and_Connected_web.pdf))

AskIzzy is the result of Infoxchange winning the Google Impact Challenge in
2015. For me the most interesting things about the site other than it's value
to those in need is that it didn’t cost tax payers a cent to develop or host
and it has no model for making profit of any kind, this resulted in the site
being designed truly for the end consumer - the person in need.

We did a lot of research, working with homeless and at-risk people throughout
Australia and Service Providers, it's really been quite an eye opener
especially for my team who are largely technically focused. The research
encompassed an approach called emotion centred design and was a collaboration
between Infoxchange, Navy Design and Swinburne University Centre for Design
Innovation.

We (Infoxchange) have had a large database of providers centred around
services for disadvantaged and at risk people in Australia since the early
90s, it goes back so far that we used to offer this information up over BBS -
and we actually ran the very first 'online' search engine in Australasia, back
then it was called 'the info X change'.

On the technical side, it's essentially a front end (open source) that
accesses data from our services & providers database which is called
'Infoxchange Service Seeker', that platform is a number of Python app that use
Elasticsearch backed by PostgreSQL with PostGIS, it has its own set of front
ends for various purposes and has a pretty flexible API to query data, which
is what is used by services like AskIzzy to get the information they need. In
the back end we host the various components of the platforms out of load
balanced application containers (Docker) and rely on the usual open source
tools of the trade such as Nginx, Puppet, RabbitMQ, GitLab (and Gitlab CI)
etc...

Back in 2014 I gave a talk on the history and journey with search and our
database of providers - those slides are still very much relevant and contain
some screenshots from the mid 90s of someone accessing the data via Mosaic -
check out: [https://smcleod.net/search-a-journey-of-delivery-on-a-
budget](https://smcleod.net/search-a-journey-of-delivery-on-a-budget)

With regards to updating data - I think that might be the hardest part, we all
know garbage in == garbage out, so we tend not to like the idea of scraping,
Many service providers do not have the technical skills or infrastructure to
expose the the state of their services online but are more than happy to fill
out a small status update form on a website, email an update to one of our
systems etc... We also have a dedicated team of database updaters that make
regular stop ins with service providers to ensure their details are correct.

The database content of services mostly already existed thanks to us running
[https://infoxchange.serviceseeker.com.au](https://infoxchange.serviceseeker.com.au)
for the last 20-25 years in its various forms, we spent a lot of time on the
research, working with homeless and at risk people to understand what they
actually need / want and how they would find it, a lot of UX design went into
the project and a lot of time is still being spent on search result quality
which is always hard.

For the initial funding, we put the idea to Google as part of their 'impact
challenge' which they give funding for good ideas that help develop technical
services / projects for society and those in need. A number of other
organisations around Australia have assisted us by providing media coverage,
additional development and testing resources which we are very grateful for.
Ongoing we will be checking to see if it has made the difference we think it
can by a research project measuring social impact over several years.

We are a not-for-profit, charitable organisation - we're not making any money
off AskIzzy and pride ourselves on our financial and technical transparency.

* Product video: [https://www.infoxchange.net.au/ask-izzy](https://www.infoxchange.net.au/ask-izzy)

* Launch video: [http://goo.gl/tRnGSD](http://goo.gl/tRnGSD)

* Code base: [https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy](https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy)

Within the first few days of the launch we had:

\- 7290 total unique visitors

\- 172,266 requests have been served

\- 8,119 sessions

\- 6,759 unique users

\- 123,885 page views

\- 00:02:59 average session duration

\- 82.4% new visitors / 17.6% returning visitors

\- 0.7% bounce rate

*Edit: I should note that if you're not in Australia and want to try out an Australian location search - try 3000 which is Melbourne's CBD

~~~
mrmondo
Note: We're also looking for a Python developer to join our team in Melbourne,
see Josh's comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030860)

~~~
chris_wot
I just tried to view the site, but getting a blank page :-( but do you accept
pull requests?

~~~
mrmondo
The site as in the LinkedIn job ad or AskIzzy?

If you mean AskIzzy - yes we definitely accept pull requests:
[https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy](https://github.com/ask-izzy/ask-izzy)

------
prawn
Tested in Adelaide and after a couple of local results for my fake criteria,
it listed shelters interstate, 6-11 days walk away. Maybe don't show those or
separate them obviously so they don't confuse anyone.

Or offer an "if all else fails" hotline number at the bottom of the results
(even if you have one shown at the top).

Great initiative though.

~~~
mrmondo
Thanks for the input, if it's not too much trouble would you mind submitting
where you are and what you searched for perhaps with a screenshot of the map
to the 'submit feedback' at the bottom of the page?

~~~
prawn
I'm in Halifax Street (Adelaide 5000). It showed a hotline, two local options
and then the rest were over a week's walk away.

~~~
jscn
Thanks, prawn, I believe I've reproduced the issue and we're looking into it.

------
mrmondo
I should have mentioned earlier that if anyone wants to assist us with
improving search results quality and has experience with Python and
Elasticsearch we'd love to hear from you. The quality of the results is
incredibly important but it happens to be one of the biggest challenges when
you're dealing with quite large data sets and diverse search usage, please
contact us via one of the various links we've provided throughout these
comments if you have something to add.

------
borkabrak
I love this idea. Unfortunately, everything I tried gave me:

    
    
        Sorry, I couldn't do this search.
    
        Could not find a location matching "Nashville, Tennessee"
    

I'm.. so proud. :-/

One more reason (as if I need more) to be thankful I do at least have a roof
over my head.

~~~
mrmondo
We're an Australian based organisation and our data and target audience is
Australia wide at present, we are doing other work in New Zealand and
potentially South Africa - more on this soon.

------
mrmondo
We're really keen on getting any feedback that you might have, good or bad -
we're keen to fix any bugs that get found and improve the app as much as
possible.

------
mpnordland
Are there any plans to expand the apps reach beyond Australia, or is there any
alternative for the US?

~~~
jscn
No plans to expand outside of Australia that I'm aware of. Another commenter
mentioned
([https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=11029770](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=11029770))
a similar product for the SF area: [http://linkyeg.ca/](http://linkyeg.ca/)

~~~
mrmondo
To expand on this, we are a very open organisation that loves knowledge
sharing, the front end of the site is open source and we always entertain
working with other 3rd parties / organisations to share ideas, so just because
we're not planning to launch an off-shore version the app doesn't mean that we
won't ever work with others to help create / improve their services or ideas.

------
rawTruthHurts
Errr... I have to ask... so... a homeless chap... with a mobile device???

------
ptype
Maybe it's just me, but I first read the name as "ass-kissing" \- intentional?

edit: to downvoters, I'm not trying to be funny here, surely that's
potentially useful feedback?

~~~
jscn
Thanks for the feedback, definitely not intentional :)

A lot of effort and consultation with a number of groups (including end users)
went into choosing the name. Turns out, naming things is surprisingly hard!

~~~
mrmondo
"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and
naming things."

\-- Phil Karlton

~~~
jscn
...and off-by-one errors.

~~~
rickycook
np-hard problems are pretty hard

------
adamrights
Nice job guys!

------
adamrights
Nice job guys

------
haiwenchen
Seriously....

