Dyslexic Friendly Reader

Inspiration

The inspiration for Dyslexic Friendly Reader came from recognizing the challenges dyslexic individuals face when reading dense or poorly formatted online content. Text-heavy websites often lack accessibility, making it harder for users to focus and comprehend. As someone passionate about inclusivity and technology, I wanted to leverage AI to make the internet a more accessible space for everyone, particularly those with dyslexia.

What it does

Dyslexic Friendly Reader is a Chrome extension that uses AI to transform selected web text into a more dyslexia-friendly format. It simplifies sentence structures, organizes content with clear headings and bullet points, and applies dyslexia-friendly fonts and spacing. The result is a cleaner, more accessible reading experience that reduces visual stress and improves focus.

How we built it

Technology Stack: Chrome extension APIs to interact with user-selected text. AI model integration using Gemini Nano built into Chrome to process and transform the text based on pre-defined readability guidelines. Vite, Vue, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for the extension's functionality and user interface. Design Process: Researched best practices for dyslexia-friendly formatting. Designed a seamless workflow to allow users to transform text with just a few clicks. Focused on simplicity and efficiency to ensure usability across various websites.

Challenges we ran into

Technical Challenges: Ensuring the extension works consistently across different types of web pages and dynamic content (e.g., single-page applications). Optimizing the AI prompt to handle a wide range of text complexities while keeping the output user-friendly. User Experience: Balancing customizability with simplicity in the settings. Making the transformation process intuitive for non-technical users. Performance: Maintaining fast response times despite the computational overhead of AI text processing.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully integrating AI to transform text in real-time within a browser environment. Creating a tool that directly addresses a real-world accessibility challenge and makes a meaningful impact for dyslexic readers. Designing a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of improving text readability with minimal clicks.

What we learned

The importance of user-centered design when building accessibility tools. How to effectively harness the Chrome AI API to address niche accessibility needs, such as formatting text for dyslexic readers. The value of iterative testing and feedback in refining both the extension's functionality and its impact.

What's next for Dyslexic Friendly Reader

Adding support for more user preferences (like colors) and accommodating diverse grammatical structures. Enhancing the AI’s capabilities to include content summarization or real-time audio narration for an even broader audience. Partnering with educators, accessibility advocates, and developers to promote the extension and improve accessibility awareness. Exploring mobile browser compatibility to extend the tool's reach beyond desktops.