Inspiration
We were inspired to create this project because we witnessed a lack of accommodation for the accessible needs community when it comes to viewing websites. Specifically, we came up with this idea to assist people who identify as Autistic.
What it does
Access For All is a platform that provides accessibility to accommodate the needs of every individual, by converting websites into simple to read and comprehend formats. The key component to our web app is that every site rendered will follow the same consistent layout.
How I built it
We built Access For All by using Python scripts built with a Flask framework to scape websites given a URL and render them on our own dynamic pages. These pages were built through HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and prototyped in Figma. We used Azure's computer vision API to caption images and make them easy to understand. We also used a text simplification algorithm to make the content easier to understand for the user.
Challenges I ran into
We had a difficult time scraping elements into a consistent format because websites use different layouts. We also found a learning curve to using Azure.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We are proud of our teamwork and collaboration as we went into DubHacks not knowing each other and were able to overcome any awkward beginnings. In the end, we worked well together and found our team dynamic to thrive here. We are proud of creating an application that is necessary for society and we hope one day this can make someone's life a little bit easier.
What I learned
We learned how to work well as a team and practice intentional communication even if under pressure. We learned how to balance fun, team bonding, and creating a project we can be proud of. On the technical side, we learned how to use Azure's API. We also learned how to create a dynamic web app that can connect to an infrastructure platform.
What's next for Access for All
We would love to optimize it for even more websites and clean up some of the image and text parsings. Hopefully, this can be deployed even at a small scale to local elementary students who need such a service.
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