abilityConnect

Inspiration

Much of our inspiration came from the exemplar’s personal stories. We were inspired by Gus Chalkias’s YouTube video where he shared his experience using accessibility technologies. From this We knew we needed to bridge the gap between people seeking solutions and problem solvers.

How it works

abilityConnect is an iOS mobile and web application that allows users to post a specific issue or personal experience and receive aid and support from other users. For the Front End we used swift/HTML/CSS/js and Parse for Back End.

Imagine a visually impaired user has trouble navigating the city or someone with autism is looking new ways to reduce the stress in their life. They can log into our page and look to see if a similar experience has already been posted, if not they can submit their experience and add tags relating to the topic. Another user can then solve this issue by pitching ideas or sharing solutions. Users will be able to up vote helpful solutions which determine the precedence of the solutions. Ultimately the goal of the platform is to create a safe environment to spark development of new solutions and increase awareness for existing ones.

Challenges we ran into

Making the mobile application adjustable to any type of iOS device. Learning how to implement parse.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we've created a functional web and mobile app with a linked database using parse. We were assigned roles where we could grow, so it was a great learning process for each one of us.

What we learned

We learned many there are still so many accessibility challenges that require solutions for.

What's next for abilityConnect

The next step for abilityConnect is to be put into the hands of testers for feedback. After that we need to make changes to the user interface, to better our consumer experience.