Inspiration
Talking on text, we rarely think before we send, which often leads to hurtful messages being sent without us even realising it. We created Nicerly as a reminder that the person on the other end of the screen can be deeply affected by the words you send. For young adults, Nicerly acts as a second opinion, for children, this is a great tool for preventing cyberbullying from occurring at a young age.
What it does
Nicerly analyses the text you are about to send and notifies you if what you say may potentially be hurtful. Messages change according to the severity of the message sent. The extension popup also tracks the number of positive and negative messages sent over time.
How we built it
This project involves a WebServer which we built with Azure, that runs a natural language processing algorithm in python which carries out sentiment analysis on the texts. The chrome extension is built on javascript/css/html, which is responsibly for sending the user a notification when a bad text is being written along with a stats page on the popup screen.
Challenges we ran into
Building the natural language processing algorithm proved to be a challenge as it was a very unconventional way of analysing text, instead of the usual semantics analysis, our project involved sentiment analysis, which analysed mood and intent instead of just meaning. Getting used to the Azure interface was a challenge at first, but we managed to figure it out and it ended up being a very reliable platform for us to host our WebServer.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Creating a reliable WebServer through the use of Azure, building an interactive chrome extension from scratch, learning how to use and build natural language processing algorithms through the help of python and javascript modules such as NLTK and compromise, helping people, standing up against cyber bullying
What we learned
How to build chrome extensions How to use Azure
What's next for Nicerly
Nicerly is currently only a chrome extension used specifically for facebook messenger, but with more time, it could become a tool that detects not only the negativity of a text, but even the moods attached with certain paragraphs of text, whether it be on emails, letters or even essays. For children, this is a great way to educate them on the importance of utilising text messaging in an appropriate manner and for foreign speakers of english, Nicerly provides a second opinion on the mood of the passage they are writing, letting the user know the overall tone of what they are writing.
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