Our submission to EnactusHacks 2.0 in August 2020.
The Problem
During Summer 2020, I had the chance to participate in a 24-hour hackathon hosted by Enactus with 3 friends. We were faced with the challenge of “How might we improve lives for those who are underrepresented?”
Faced with the challenge of narrowing down the category of "underrepresented groups,” I suggested the idea of targeting web accessibility because I had recently worked on class projects regarding the use of WebAIM, a tool that checks a website for how compliant it is with accessibility standards.
Now that we had a target area, web accessibility, we needed to verify that it would actually help some user group. How did we do that? We came up with ideas of potential user groups in our heads, but we double-checked it on Google.
Low and behold, those with dyslexia and/or low vision tended to have experiences on the web that were not ideal. They struggled to tell colours apart, and sometimes, if the font size was too small or the font type too swirly, they would have more trouble than the average reader in deciphering messages.
This problem was important because it was estimated that 11.5 million people around the world are dyslexic and 14 million have low vision.
Therefore, our group decided to proceed by designing a tool that would help these individuals utilize the web in a more equal way.
Accessibility in web design is important but often overlooked.
A lack of colour contrast or small sized fonts can create difficult situations for those with low vision.
The Solution
Our solution was a web app and Chrome extension that enables low vision and dyslexic users to:
1) input low accessibility website
2) receive an optimized website in return (including readable colours and fonts)
As an added feature, we included summarization and format conversion capabilities (e.g. text-to-audio) in case the users had a preferred learning method (e.g. auditory learner). At the end of the day, we simply wanted to make things easier for users who had a hard time on the web.
The full slide deck can be accessed here. This deck includes our monetization strategy, target market projections, and projected growth.
Prototype screens of the web app.
Reflection & Results
As a result of our empathy for the user need of accessibility in designing an effective solution, we won the “Best in Category” prize amongst 200+ hackathon participants.
The biggest learning from this hackathon and project was that, sometimes, you don’t need a prototype to be fancy to convey your ideas effectively.
There were many ways that we could have designed the Figma prototype better, but because we instead chose to focus our time on understanding users’ experiences and how to actually solve the problem, we were able to produce a feasible and effective solution.
Going forward, I believe it’s important to continue examining users’ needs first and foremost before trying to dive into the design cycle.