Inspiration
Over the course of the pandemic, gardening has seen a surge in popularity, with 80% of respondents stating that they plan to continue gardening post-pandemic. However, many websites and apps are not designed with accessibility in mind, making them difficult or impossible to use for people with certain disabilities. Developing accessibility tools, such as screen reader support, voice control, and keyboard navigation, could greatly improve the user experience for people with disabilities. Garden visualization apps can allow people with mobility impairments to visualize and plan their garden beds, enabling them to participate in gardening and enjoy the benefits of growing their own plants.
For people with cognitive disabilities, garden visualization apps can provide a clear and visual representation of garden beds, making it easier for them to understand and plan their garden. The use of high-contrast colors and bold fonts can also help individuals with visual impairments to more easily distinguish and identify different elements of the garden bed. Additionally, community gardening is an excellent way to promote sustainability, so it's important to make it widely accessible. Visualizing garden beds is a great way for people to plan out their garden and see it in a comprehensible format.
What it does
Our app, "Plant Your Dreams: Accessible Garden Bed Makers," incorporates assistive technologies, such as using keyboard arrows to expand the size of the garden box, high-contrast colors, bold font, and captioning photos, to help people visualize their garden beds.
Users can use the arrow keys to adjust the size of their garden beds and navigate to the "plants" page to drag and drop plants into their garden box.
How we built it
We used React-native for the framework.
Challenges we ran into
This was my first time using React Native and writing code for an app. We encountered many bugs and struggled to get the project to load on mobile devices.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Getting something to work! I don't have much project code-based experience so creating something from scratch was very educational and rewarding.
What we learned
I learned how to use React-native and how to design technology with accessibility in mind.
What's next for Plant Your Dreams: Accessible Garden Bed Makers
We plan to continue improving our app's mobile features and accessibility, as well as adding new plants and expanding the user interface. In addition, we want to add an AR component so users can take photos of their garden bed layout. We also want to find alternatives to the "drag and drop" method like shifting to a button, swipe, voice, or menu-based interface for users who may have difficulty with fine motor control.
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