Clarity

Clarity is a web application to make online learning accessible for Autistic students grades 6-9 with innovations for lectures, speech-to-text, a clarify function for jargon, and engaging discussions.

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Inspiration:

The transition to online learning has been difficult for students, but it has been especially difficult for those who have autism. With past experiences, teaching Autistic students using an online environment can be difficult, and require lots of collaboration and effort to the students, teachers, and mentors involved. The contemporary online tools used for learning are quite limiting, and we plan to evolve currently existing ones to adapt to the needs for Autistic students. We decided to innovate upon existing technologies for remote classes such as Zoom and Google Meets by incorporating more features catered to middle school students with autism.

What it does:

Dashboard:

  • Reason: Trouble with changes in their routines, create a system to alert students about changings in schedules
  • Design: alert the student of their next upcoming Zoom class, then students get the ability to look further into their day ahead, 3 main buttons used: clarify, discussion, and notes, Agenda has links to zoom calls, and homework list has links to the homework material Clarify:
  • Reason: Students with autism often are very literal in their understanding of conversations, texts, etc.
  • Design: allow students to search for notes that possibly contain words that might be inaccurately construed, and the function should return the text back in a more palliative manner to clarify texts like similes and metaphors, etc. Notes:
  • Reason: students with Autism are visual learners
  • Design: allows students to obtain personal copies of transcribed live notes from zoom class, teachers also provides additional material to student to preface what they will learn in the upcoming classes Discussion:
  • Reason: To aid students with understanding the nuances of social interactions and encourage effective communication with others
  • Design: to allow students, teachers, and classmates to communicate with each other, also contains the clarify function for the instances where the student wants extra clarification on what a teacher or classmate wrote in the discussion chat Zoom:
  • Reason: To help students direct or redirect their attention to the most important aspects within the lecture, visual learners
  • Design: teachers have a button on their zoom dashboard to alert students of important topics discussed at the current moment to make the class interactive, live transcripts of what the teachers’ are saying during class so students can follow along with the lecture, students can also post questions One on One:
  • Reason: Include the student in planning for instruction, discuss what will be done to meet the student’s needs, gives the student an opportunity to create a trusting relationship with the people supporting them
  • Design: students can grant teachers access to their local laptops to help them make their schedules, ## How We Built It We first conducted research to understand our demographics and personas. We found that Autistic children tend to have less internal structure and regulation. They need external structures in place to allow them to be successful. With the transition to remote learning, their learning environments can make it easier to procrastinate and lose focus while making it harder to organize their day and to communicate with their teachers and support staff. Also, they are also more visual learners and instructions that are written out in large blocks of text are difficult for them to decipher. Thus, we aimed to incorporate concise, minimal features with our web application to create the most conducive environment for them to succeed. We also decided to stick to a calming color palette of black, white, gray, and pale pink (pale pink is often chosen as the most calming color for children with Autism). We used Figma to wire frame and prototype the entire web application. ## Challenges We Ran Into: We had to balance simplicity of the design while choosing the most important features to include in the application. We needed to minimize the use of graphics or displays which would be too distracting for middle school children with autism while introducing features which would best allow them to focus and to be engaged. We agonized over the use of text and icons for the buttons and the shape, color, and feel of the alerts for the video calls. ## Accomplishments We're Proud Of We are proud to have redesigned familiar platforms for online learning to accommodate for the specific needs of Autistic students from grades 6-9. We were a team of beginner designers, but we are proud of ourselves for using Figma to wireframe and prototype an application for the first time. Our product has features which would be beneficial for Autistic children even outside of learning during the pandemic; it can also be used for check-ins with advisors, becoming familiar with the unspoken rules of social situations, and deciphering the language of traditional textbooks and lessons with the “Clarify” function.

Built With

  • figma
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Tagline: Clarity is a web application to make online learning accessible for autistic students grades 6-9 by innovations for lectures, speech-to-text, a clarify function for jargon, and engaging discussions.

Inspiration:

The transition to online learning has been difficult for students, but it has been especially difficult for those who have autism. With past experiences, teaching Autistic students using an online environment can be difficult, and require lots of collaboration and effort to the students, teachers, and mentors involved. The contemporary online tools used for learning are quite limiting, and we plan to evolve currently existing ones to adapt to the needs for Autistic students. We decided to innovate upon existing technologies for remote classes such as Zoom and Google Meets by incorporating more features catered to middle school students with autism.

What it does:

Dashboard: Reason: Trouble with changes in their routines, create a system to alert students about changings in schedules Design: alert the student of their next upcoming Zoom class, then students get the ability to look further into their day ahead, 3 main buttons used: clarify, discussion, and notes, Agenda has links to zoom calls, and homework list has links to the homework material Clarify: Reason: Students with autism often are very literal in their understanding of conversations, texts, etc. Design: allow students to search for notes that possibly contain words that might be inaccurately construed, and the function should return the text back in a more palliative manner to clarify texts like similes and metaphors, etc. Notes: Reason: students with Autism are visual learners Design: allows students to obtain personal copies of transcribed live notes from zoom class, teachers also provides additional material to student to preface what they will learn in the upcoming classes Discussion: Reason: To aid students with understanding the nuances of social interactions and encourage effective communication with others Design: to allow students, teachers, and classmates to communicate with each other, also contains the clarify function for the instances where the student wants extra clarification on what a teacher or classmate wrote in the discussion chat Zoom: Reason: To help students direct or redirect their attention to the most important aspects within the lecture, visual learners Design: teachers have a button on their zoom dashboard to alert students of important topics discussed at the current moment to make the class interactive, live transcripts of what the teachers’ are saying during class so students can follow along with the lecture, students can also post questions One on One: Reason: Include the student in planning for instruction, discuss what will be done to meet the student’s needs, gives the student an opportunity to create a trusting relationship with the people supporting them Design: students can grant teachers access to their local laptops to help them make their schedules,

How I built it

We first conducted research to understand our demographics and personas. We found that Autistic children tend to have less internal structure and regulation. They need external structures in place to allow them to be successful. With the transition to remote learning, their learning environments can make it easier to procrastinate and lose focus while making it harder to organize their day and to communicate with their teachers and support staff. Also, they are also more visual learners and instructions that are written out in large blocks of text are difficult for them to decipher. Thus, we aimed to incorporate concise, minimal features with our web application to create the most conducive environment for them to succeed. We also decided to stick to a calming color palette of black, white, gray, and pale pink (pale pink is often chosen as the most calming color for children with Autism). We used Figma to wireframe and prototype the entire web application.

Challenges I ran into:

We had to balance simplicity of the design while choosing the most important features to include in the application. We needed to minimize the use of graphics or displays which would be too distracting for middle school children with autism while introducing features which would best allow them to focus and to be engaged. We agonized over the use of text and icons for the buttons and the shape, color, and feel of the alerts for the video calls.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We are proud to have redesigned familiar platforms for online learning to accommodate for the specific needs of Autistic students from grades 6-9. We were a team of beginner designers, but we are proud of ourselves for using Figma to wireframe and prototype an application for the first time. Our product has features which would be beneficial for Autistic children even outside of learning during the pandemic; it can also be used for check-ins with advisors, becoming familiar with the unspoken rules of social situations, and deciphering the language of traditional textbooks and lessons with the “Clarify” function.

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