LettuceTalk

The UI of our web app

Inspiration

We were inspired to create a safe and supportive environment targeted towards individuals with ADHD/autism to practice and improve upon their social skills. As many struggle having weak communication skills and may not have the opportunity to work on them regularly, we wanted our web application to be an opportunity for conversation.

What it does

LettuceTalk allows the user to select a category of their choice to have a conversation on. The app then calculates a rating for the user’s response in real time, giving them feedback as they continue to speak. The algorithm encourages conversational depth and complexity by analyzing the length of the reply and keeping a count of certain keywords. After the user has finished their response, LettuceTalk exports their conversation data to a Google spreadsheet for later personal reference. This data can then be used to monitor progress, and target areas of improvement for the individual. We also included a feature to have the option of conversing in other languages.

How I built it

LettuceTalk was built using Javascript and HTML/CSS. We incorporated the use of Google Text-to-speech and Speech-to-text APIs and used Standard Library to connect the data collected by the web application with Google Sheets. We built a web application for an intuitive user friendly UI that can be easily accessed.

Challenges I ran into

There were multiple challenges associated with the production of LettuceTalk. The first was a matter of scope; originally, we intended to make use of data from Google Photos in order to tailor questions specific to the user’s experiences. However, Google Photos integration was too much to implement for our team in our short amount of time at the Hackathon. Additionally, prior to the hackathon, none of the team members had extensive experience with Web development; the project was a learning experience for each team member.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We were proud to have created a functional prototype of the web app we were envisioning. We were able to put our strengths together and work through our weaknesses in order to overcome the challenges along the way.

What I learned

Javascript, HTML & CSS, Google Speech to Text API, API implementation, Standard Library

What's next for LettuceTalk

In order for LettuceTalk to become an application that can provide more educational and medical purposes for users(mostly with ADHD/autism), visual functions should be added to the program that can trigger past memories of individuals selecting the specified topics. This is so to provide the user experience with more personally customized way. Additionally, the scoring system would be made more comprehensive in the future as the database of keywords grows. More complex facets of language could be analyzed as well, such as tone of voice and clarity of speech.