Social media is addictive. Social media has the power to connect people all over the world. However, Studies have shown that social media impacts people’s lives negatively. Our project focused on creating a new social media platform that’s purpose is to prove that social media can be effective, meaningful, and impact mental health positively. Our platform on the idea of only being to use it for one minute a day, believing that by cutting down the viewing time, we can decrease addiction while also motivating users to post interesting content.

Home Care Aides are the future of long-term care in the USA, allowing older adults and people with disabilities to live in the community and age in place. Unfortunately, a significant portion of the HCA workforce suffers from high rates of chronic diseases. Our team has partnered with SEIU 775 Benefits Group to understand and communicate the prevalence of chronic diseases in the HCA workforce through statistical analysis and evaluation. By utilizing medical insurance claims data, our team has generated an interactive report that provides information on a vulnerable group of healthcare providers in order to support a healthy workforce.

My aim for my Capstone was to make some of the previously unavailable historical visual materials housed in UW's Special Collections accessible for researchers by providing organized, digitized, and searchable collections. To do this, I identified photograph subject matter, researched historical context and significance, inventoried collections, determined appropriate organizational schemes, created indexes, digitizing prints and negatives, preserved materials by moving them to appropriate archival housing, created finding aids using the XMetaL Author program, and linked XML entries to corresponding digital scans. By the project's end I had completed two collections, and determined organizational systems and background information for two more.

We reimagined how a dollar can generate data. The Food Access Partnership on Vashon Island distributes cash to the community to minimize costs of locally grown food, but the paper currency they create and distribute suffers from low redemption rates. Improving this system, our solution provides real time data for partnering nonprofits and farmers while preserving the familiar paper “Farm Buck.” Now, our stakeholders can track Farm Bucks through the system and encourage users to redeem them at farmer’s markets and farm stands. Placing data in the hands of organizers, we’re helping Vashon Islanders address food equity in their community.

As Washington Trails Association’s (WTA) hiking guides and user-submitted trip reports are mostly created by those who have been a part of the outdoor community for a long time, there is often a natural and unconscious bias imbedded within the information resource. This project helped WTA gain insights on how they can effectively design a content standard for their user-generated Trip Reports so that in turn, the system can be more inclusive, empowering, collaborative, and accessible. Some proposed solutions were to incorporate enhanced search capabilities of trip reports, trip reporter identifiers, and a revised trip reporting framework for quick reporting.

Being able to browse print collections is an important step to discovering information. This project explores the impact of using virtual bookshelves at ASU Library to create a browsing experience for those not in physical library spaces. The Library’s development team has agreed to redesign an existing virtual bookshelf application to meet the goals of this project. This project identifies communities to share this tool with and outlines a specification document to aid the development team in their redesign. This application will allow the Library to build partnerships across campus and provide opportunities to browse and discover information.

Missoula Public Library in Missoula, MT is building a new library website for 2020. Our capstone team sought to better understand the content, context, and users of the library’s website to improve the information architecture. We restructured the global navigation to have a topical organization scheme and eliminated ambiguous terms. We also developed a written report with a summary of our research, recommended information architecture, best practices going forward, and curated data for future analyses. The result being a "digital branch" that builds community, enhances library services, and saves the time of the user.

Often, librarians create information literacy resources based on what they deem to be essential. We took a different, collaborative approach. Partnering with Highline College and the Puente Cultural Cohort, we produced 14 information literacy videos and infographics tailored to the Puente Cohort’s wants and needs, based on informal interviews, student feedback, and beta tests. Our videos aren’t just about information literacy skills. They are about creating culturally sensitive products that highlight and celebrate Highline’s diverse student body. The items in this toolkit give students and instructors the resources they need for both now and the future.

Literacy Source is an educational non-profit in Lake City that offers classes in English for speakers of other languages and adult based education to low-income adults. Though they have a Reading Library with many great materials for students and tutors, circulation is low. We worked with Literacy Source and the various users of the Reading Library to gather data and perspectives, leading to a re-design of the space. As a result of more concrete leveling criteria, re-organizing the ways books are shelved, and inclusive signage, users are now able to more easily browse the library space independently.