AlphaBetter | Devpost

AlphaBetter Logo
Home Screen where you can input image or go to the preference page
Screen for preferences for letter 'a'
Screen for preferences for letter 'b'

Inspiration:

In Chris Wanstrath's keynote speech he described how the first company he worked for used OCR technologies, so we decided to also brainstorm possible uses of OCR technologies. We wanted to make an application that would be helpful and we eventually stumbled upon the idea of making something that would benefit the millions of people affected by dyslexia, a learning disorder seen in 1 out of every 10 people.

What it does:

Our application enables users to change their "preferences" on how they see various letters. For example, what would be seen as a normal 'a' for most could be seen as an 'ɐ' or 'ɒ' for people with dyslexia. We took the most common dyslexic rotations and allowed our users to choose which ones they saw as "regular" with the help of text-to-speech. After updating their "preferences," users are then able to upload images to be translated into their "text preference." This enables people with dyslexia to easily read images that they may have found seriously difficult to read before.

How we built it:

We built our Android application by using eclipse's ADT bundle (combines XML and Java). Additionally, we used Adobe Photoshop to create several images and implemented the OCR API Service (http://ocrapiservice.com/) to convert images into text.

Challenges we ran into:

Implementing the OCR API was challenging since we did it from scratch. In addition, creating an activity for each letter was quite tedious. Lastly, developing a clean design took some time as we wanted our application to look sleek (layouts in Android are often annoying to make).

Accomplishments that we're proud of:

Fully functioning OCR API and mobile application with sleek logo and design.

What we learned:

We learned how to successfully implement an OCR API and we gained invaluable experience and knowledge in the field of android native development.

What's next for AlphaBetter:

We added a drop down menu for our language inputs in anticipation of adding multiple languages in the future. Moreover, we hope to add more "preferences" to enlarge our target audience. More focus will also have to be spent on making the interface more friendly for our audience.