My Reps is a civic learning tool, not only a representative lookup demo. The long-term goal is to help residents understand who represents them, what each office is responsible for, and where the project's source data is strong or limited.
- Add address autocomplete so incomplete inputs like street-only searches can guide users toward a complete address.
- Improve address normalization and validation messages without echoing exact addresses back into logs or error payloads.
- Explain when a lookup fails because an address is ambiguous, outside supported coverage, or unavailable from a source.
- Add short explanations for each office and level of government.
- Show how responsibilities differ across offices, such as senator, representative, governor, mayor, council member, and school board member.
- Keep explanations plain-language and source-backed so the app remains useful for people who are interested but rusty on civics.
- Add district maps or boundary visualizations for represented areas.
- Make selected regions readable without implying more precision than the source data supports.
- Document boundary source vintage, redistricting caveats, and known gaps.
- Show term end dates and time remaining when the source data can support it.
- Distinguish election cycles, appointment periods, vacancies, and offices with unusual term rules.
- Avoid guessing when term data is unavailable or stale.
- Explore voting records after the representative lookup contract is stable.
- Start with source discovery and data licensing before adding summaries.
- Show source links and limits clearly, especially where records vary by chamber or jurisdiction.
- Keep mock data synthetic and clearly labeled.
- Treat live provider coverage as partial until federal, state, county, and local offices are all validated.
- Keep provider keys server-side.
- Do not persist exact addresses, exact coordinates, raw upstream bodies, or lookup history unless a future privacy review explicitly allows it.