Inspiration
Domestic violence is a preventable public health problem that does not discriminate and can happen to anyone regardless of age, race, gender, education, wealth, or sexuality. Often, barriers to healthcare or lack of a support system prevents victims from connecting to the resources that already exist. Other times, the resources are not presented or advertised in a way that is accessible to the people who need it the most.
'Limacon' is similar to the name of one of the women who inspired me to make this website, who is a survivor of domestic violence, was able to leave her relationship, and became a social health worker, advocate of survivors, and educator to raise awareness about the public health issue of domestic violence. I want this website to contribute to the increase in support for and conversation around how we can address domestic violence symptoms and root causes.
What it does
This website is an accessible place that empowers people in abusive relationships who are looking for resources to make choices about what steps they want to take, whether it's talking to someone on the phone, finding a local resource, talking to someone trained to help minors, or learning more about what their legal rights are. Limacon connects people to organizations and groups that are available to help them, through a simple, approachable design. The website also aims to have an education section for people who are not victims but want to learn more about the reality of domestic violence through data visualization.
How I built it
- Research: what makes a website accessible? What features do existing domestic abuse help websites have that can be improved upon? What existing resources and databases are there for survivors?
- Brainstorming and organization: what features and categories should the website have? How should the information be grouped together for maximum readability?
- Learning the technical: becoming familiar with the syntax and structure of HTML, CSS, and JS
- Execution: translating design ideas into code, linking outside resources, putting together design, testing, debugging
Challenges I ran into
- Bringing together many factors that make a website more accessible while thinking about good design
- I did not have much background in web design
- Learning how HTML, CSS, and JS work together to create a functioning website
- Trying to create the best structure and format for the information that allowed for optimal interactions with text-to-speech software that vision-impaired users would read the website through
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
- The organization of the website is thoughtful
What I learned
- How HTML, CSS, and JS work and interact with each other
- Syntax, structure, and conventions of HTML, CSS, JS
- Ways to approach accessibility of websites and types of disabilities to consider
- It is useless to style an HTML paragraph as if it were a heading, because it prevents text-to-speech softwares from describing the hierarchy of the website
- "Accessibility is not a barrier to innovation"
What's next for Limacon
- Developing the 'Learning' section of the website with data visualization to present the scope of the problem
- Getting a domain name to host the website
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