Tappy

What it does

Tappy transforms the frustrating reality of inaccessible menus into dignified, independent dining experiences. Restaurant staff simply scan a physical menu, and our system converts it into a digital format encoded into an NFC tag. When customers with visual impairments tap their phone to the tag, the menu opens instantly and can be read aloud using built-in screen readers.

This alternative solution bridges the

How we built it

Swift & SwiftUI: Built with accessibility-first principles learned from PIT workshops
** Vision Framework:** Leverages Apple's OCR for text detection from menu images
** Core NFC: ** Encodes digital menus into affordable, reusable NFC tags
** Structured Data Processing: ** Transforms messy OCR output into organized menu categories
** VoiceOver Optimization: ** Every interface element designed for seamless screen reader compatibility

Challenges we ran into

NFC Integration
Accessibility Compliance: Ensuring UI worked with VoiceOver

Public Interest Balance: Designing for both restaurant affordability and user independence

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a system that costs restaurants less than braille menus while serving more people
Developing technology that gives back independence rather than taking data or money
Proving that complex accessibility solutions can be simple and elegant