A11y | Devpost

Inspiration

Real-world accessibility issues, such as the difficulties people with disabilities face when navigating websites, inspired us to create a platform that educates web developers on how to build more accessible websites. We recognized that despite the growing awareness of accessibility needs, many websites still fail to meet the diverse requirements of users with visual, auditory, or motor impairments. By providing developers with practical resources, guidelines, and tools, our website aims to bridge the gap, helping create a more inclusive digital world. We believe that accessibility should be an integral part of web development, and through education, we hope to empower developers to prioritize inclusivity in their designs.

What it does

A11Y is dedicated to educating web developers on how to build more accessible websites. We provide comprehensive reports on the accessibility of their sites, highlighting areas for improvement and offering actionable recommendations. In addition, we supply a variety of resources, including tutorials, guides, and tools, to help developers deepen their knowledge and apply best practices for accessibility. Our goal is to empower developers to create websites that are usable by all, regardless of ability.

How we built it

Our website is built with Laravel and MySQL for the backend, integrated with React via Inertia, and styled using CSS and TailwindCSS. Gavin developed the backend while contributing to the frontend. Megan and Anne handled the art, animations, and design, with Mathew assisting in implementation, design, and research.

Challenges we ran into

A major challenge we had to face was how difficult the backend was to run on some team member’s computers, due to the amount of prerequisite software it required. This led to us having to split up our project into separate frontend and backend GitHub repos, and having to work on each aspect individually. However, due to the way Gavin structured the backend, it was fairly easy to graft the two projects together once each aspect was completed.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One of our proudest accomplishments is learning how to collaborate and communicate with our team members, which allowed us to effectively build upon our teamwork and leadership skills. This collaboration resulted in a website that is not only visually appealing but also highly accessible, earning an impressive accessibility score of 95. Additionally, we take pride in our ability to develop a fully functional website within a tight timeframe, a challenge that helped refine our technical abilities and strengthen our time management skills.

What we learned

While collaborating with a team, we learned to use Git and GitHub and resolve merge conflicts. In order to put our mission into practice, we studied web accessibility and the general guidelines to create a website that is accessible to all users. Our programming skills were refined and polished as we continuously practiced and fixed our code.

What's next for A11Y

We plan to add screenshots of problem spots to help the developer understand what the issue is faster. We also plan to expand our learning resources to help developers learn more about accessibility.

Built With

Submitted to

Hack-Attack 2.0
- Winner Second Place

Created by

I contributed primarily to the illustration design and front-end. This was my first Hackathon with a big team project, and I learned a lot regarding collaboration and working within tight deadlines.

an Tran
I worked on the design and front-end. It was my first time working with React and Git; I've only worked on solo projects until this Hackathon. It was an invaluable experience learning how to navigate a project and work as part of a team.

Megan Dava
I worked on the front-end mainly, which was my first time using React in a practical application. I also learned a lot of teamwork and leadership skills.

Matthew S
Gavin Krebbers