SayMyName

Education track

Why we made this project

Names Matter: Names are an integral part of one’s identity and culture.
Early Impact: Mispronunciations, especially during childhood, can create feelings of disconnect and pressure to assimilate. Research links mispronunciations to increased anxiety, shame, and feelings of alienation, particularly for students with ethnically distinct names (Kohli & Solorzano, 2012).
Implicit Bias: Failure to know or correctly pronounce student names, especially ethnically distinct names can perpetuate implicit bias and exacerbate feelings of alienation (Mitchell, 2016).
Connecting Through Names: Accurate name pronunciation facilitates stronger connections and fosters a sense of belonging.
Research shows that a student’s mere perception that an instructor knows their name can help them feel valued and increase classroom engagement (Cooper et. al 2017). Our project aims to replicate and amplify this.

Features

IPA - within the database, the names are meant to be stored in IPA notation, a system used to represent many different sounds common in a wide variety of languages. This notation system can be read by text-to-speech software, a feature important for future additions to the website.

Community posts - users can share short posts on a name’s page, for the purpose of giving further context or explanation as to the name and its pronunciation.

How we built it

To start our development process, we planned the user interface and experience using Figma. This allowed us to visualize the layout and interactions before diving into implementation. For the frontend, we used a combination of HTML, CSS, JQuery, Ajax, and Bootstrap. For the backend, we utilized HTTP and Express to handle requests and responses efficiently. Our data was managed using MySQL, and Sequelize.

Challenges we ran into

This was our first hackathon and also our first time working on a collaborative software project. We also had different levels of expertise which led to challenges in both, task execution and integration.

Looking forward

We're developing a flashcard feature to gamify learning names and pronunciation, enhancing engagement and confidence.
Users will be able to record and upload their names. For names lacking recordings, we'll implement the Google Text-to-Speech API.
Upcoming tasks include integrating profiles, login/authentication, and enhancing security.