Photon

Inspiration

We talked to one of the judges who had color blindness, and we asked him what some of his problems were. He stated that many times when he's trying to look at bar graphs and charts at his work, he often faces challenges with his color blindness condition. Because of this, we wanted to make something that would solve his problem and allow people just like him to have more accessibility in situations like that.

What it does

Photon alters the colors of the screen based on someone's type of color blindness and adjusts them so they can see the colors as they should be seen.

How we built it

Initially, we created a simple tool that adjusted the colors on the screen. However, after using it, we realized that there were more effective ways to solve this problem than just a color switch. We then created more features, such as the customized colorblind test at the beginning of the user experience, as well as the hover feature that allowed any discrepancies to be cleared up. This feature allowed users to hover over a color and get that color displayed on the screen, along with what the color was called. These features came after we did product testing with one of our friends who has color blindness, and this is how our app evolved.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into were not knowing exactly if what we were doing was effective. Knowing if the color switches were actually making a difference to someone who is actually colorblind was difficult to quantify. Talking to friends that are colorblind and having them test out the features helped us understand if what we were doing was actually working.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to be able to create software that gives people more accessibility and easier access to using software on their computer, something that people who aren't colorblind often take for granted. Regardless of the monetization, we think that doing this service for them is an accomplishment in and of itself.

What we learned

We learned that oftentimes the best fixes are not the most complex and are just the small things that would make life a little bit easier for people who are underserved in tech.

What's next for Photon

We believe that our product is extremely effective. Eventually, we want to try to look towards various schools, even around the Champaign area, that would consider using the product in their schools for free (just so kids with color blindness can try it out and have an easier experience).

Built With

• claude
• node.js