DocuSense

Inspiration

Globally, nearly half of adults who can read still struggle to understand complex, information-dense materials such as contracts, medical forms, and financial disclosures. Approximately two-thirds of adults worldwide lack basic financial literacy, and health research consistently shows that many adults cannot reliably comprehend medical instructions or documentation—even in high-income countries. This disparity is not a matter of reading ability; it is a matter of accessibility, clarity, and applied literacy where it matters most.

What it does

DocuSense addresses these challenges head on. Powered by Google Gemini’s advanced generative AI, DocuSense is innovatively designed to bridge gaps in financial, legal, and medical literacy through a user-friendly application that prioritizes accessibility and clear understanding for the user. DocuSense also emphasizes self-autonomy by placing knowledge and interpretive power back into the hands of the user. Enabling more informed decision-making, this platform strengthens individual confidence, and supports effective self-advocacy, and independence, when navigating critical, and important, documents.

How we built it

We designed DocuSense with availability and accessibility as a core development requirement, so we needed to ensure that the tools we used allowed us to achieve this goal. So, our tool choices settled on Flutter for cross platform development, Google AI Studio for our API key access to a Gemini Gen AI Flash model, Provider for state management and accessibility settings, Syncfusion PDF for text extraction, and Google Fonts (Lexend)/OpenDyslexic for access to Dyslexic friendly fonts.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into various challenges, such as development challenges as only some team members have worked with flutter, and some have not - but we were able to effectively divide and conquer on tasks to achieve our desired end product. Another challenge we faced was identifying and prioritizing various accessibility features while prompting users in the initial onboarding for this application. However, after thorough research we were able to make informed decisions based on empirical data to support our final application infrastructure and flow.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully developed a cross-platform mobile/web application that addresses a major problem in our modern world. We were able to achieve the goal we set out to do, which is to bridge gaps in financial, medical, and legal literacy while prioritizing inclusion and accessibility as a core feature and principal of our application - thus granting users greater autonomy and reducing dependence on external providers.

What we learned

This project deepened our understanding of the often-overlooked challenges faced by individuals with vision impairment and neurodivergence. Beyond gaining empathy, we significantly sharpened our technical and collaborative competencies, specifically in application development and project management.

What's next for DocuSense

Our vision is to scale DocuSense for universal deployment, ensuring its benefits reach a global audience. By expanding our reach, we aim to dismantle accessibility barriers and provide meaningful support to individuals worldwide.