AcuGuider

Inspiration

A lot of people deal with headaches, neck pain, back pain, muscle tightness, and other common discomforts, but they do not always know what they can safely try at home. Acupressure has been used as a simple wellness technique, but finding the right pressure point can be confusing.

We wanted to make that process easier by letting users select where they are hurting and what they are feeling, then showing them possible acupressure points they can try.

What it does

AcuGuider is an interactive wellness website that helps users find acupressure points based on their symptoms.

Users can:

Select the area of the body that is hurting
Describe their symptoms in their own words
View suggested acupressure points
See where each pressure point is located
Get simple instructions on how to apply pressure
Timer in place to count down

How we built it

We built the website using HTML, CSS, and TypeScript.

The interface includes an interactive body diagram where users can choose different areas of the body. Based on the selected location and symptoms, the website matches the user with pressure points stored in our system.

We also created logic that looks at keywords from the user's symptom description to help improve the recommendation. We implemented an LLM chatbot using ChatGPT's open API.

The website was designed to work on both desktop and mobile devices.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to organize different symptoms and connect them to the correct pressure points without making the interface confusing.

We also had to think about the medical safety side of the project. We did not want the website to act like it was diagnosing a condition, so we focused on general wellness recommendations and included warnings for symptoms that may require medical attention.

Another challenge was making the body selection system easy to use while still making the website look clean.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we were able to turn a simple idea into an interactive website that someone can actually use.

We created a full user flow from selecting a pain location to receiving a personalized acupressure recommendation.

We are also proud of the design because the website feels more like a real wellness app instead of just a basic form.

What we learned

We learned a lot about designing health-related applications and how important it is to present medical information carefully.

We also learned how to create interactive interfaces, connect user input to stored data, and design a website around the user's experience instead of only focusing on the code.

What's next for AcuGuider

We will implement a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), a machine learning model for better application purposes.

We would also like to add:

A more detailed 3D or anatomical body model
Better pressure-point illustrations
Voice input
Personalized recommendations
Saved symptom history
More verified acupressure information
Integration with wearable or health data

Our long-term goal is to make AcuGuider a simple wellness assistant that helps people better understand their discomfort and possible self-care options.