According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, approximately "three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihood." Therefore, it is critical that we do our part to maintain the cleanliness of our oceans and lakes. Our solution is a gamified website aimed to raise public awareness of beach cleanups in order to combat the growing threat of pollution. Through our website, users have the opportunity to grow a community and obtain achievements for finding and attending local beach cleanups with their friends.

The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world. A large contributor that many people buy into is fast fashion. We found that college students often participate in fast fashion due to practicality and lack of knowledge on the negative environmental and societal impacts. To raise awareness and encourage sustainable habits, we created a Google Chrome extension called Root that rates clothing brands based on their sustainable and ethical practices. Root also provides users suggestions for alternatives and more in-depth information on our ratings.

The Worcester Public Library’s intranet, or SHP, is underutilized, outdated, disorganized, and not intuitive for its users. The absence of an effective, centralized communication and knowledge-sharing platform makes it difficult for staff to access the information they need to meaningfully assist and inform the community. We delivered a two-phase consultative report to guide redesigning the SHP, detailing best practices, user research findings, a redesigned intranet concept, and change and organizational management recommendations. Our project uncovered communication deficiencies and provided the WPL with a framework for redesigning and implementing a new intranet. Improved staff communication will facilitate overall community engagement.

Smartsheet is a suite of products that makes teams productive through cloud-connected tools. System Administrator users using Smartsheet manage their users and settings, and they use reports and bulk actions for auditing purposes and user management. In the current system, reports and bulk action statuses are sent via email. Thus, there is no possible way to audit or track these items, which causes unnecessary confusion. Through this project, we designed & developed a dashboard for users to enable managing reports and bulk actions conveniently. Through these new features, admin users gain more control and flexibility to do their jobs.

Currently, there is not enough information available to the public when it comes to hearing health, and this is creating a stigma where people are reluctant and even refusing to wear hearing aids. Hearing Education, working with Sound Sustainability, focuses on increasing awareness of the importance of hearing health by providing helpful resources all in one location. Our team, along with two other student-led teams, hopes to destigmatize hearing loss by teaching people about their own hearing and helping them engage in the hearing community.

Everyone is a book filled with their own life stories. How much do we actually know about them? StoryBond is a social media app that encourages people to share and exchange stories, and these stories have the power to turn acquaintances into friends. Our app is a place to know more about the people you have met through the exchange of stories. The story can be an idea, a personal anecdote, or an experience. StoryBond provides a way that helps people connect on a deeper level. Hopefully, our users can make true bonds through writing and exchanging stories.

The Rainbow Connection is a capstone project aimed at improving the Follet Destiny Discover catalog interface for the LGBTQIA+ community of Ballard High School. Together with the sponsor, TuesD Chambers, MLIS candidates Henry Christopher, Jess Gray, and Leanne Pacheco work to improve the navigation of the library’s web pages, increasing ease of searching and information gathering. We survey the students and staff of BHS to gain stakeholder input. Then we create several digital collections to organize books by subject beyond what the current software provides. The result is an easy-to-navigate digital collection allowing users to find and access LGBTQIA+ materials.

Over 70% of the UW Women’s rowing team struggles with overtraining every year. We built an application that helps these athletes better understand their training data, and with those insights, make better decisions to reduce overtraining. Apart from analyzing large amounts of training data, we worked closely with student-athletes and team doctors to understand the symptoms of overtraining and define rowing metrics to create a training dashboard. Our Rowing Visualizer aims to help rowers and coaches better understand the effects each training has on team performance to avoid the negative outcomes from overtraining.

According to the NIDCD, 15% of American adults (37.5 million) report some trouble hearing, yet only 1 in 5 people that would benefit from a hearing aid use one. Sound Sustainability’s online hearing screening removes barriers preventing people from determining whether they have hearing loss. To do this, we worked with audiologists to produce a free, easy-to-use, hearing screening that has users listen and respond to a series of tones played at different frequencies and decibels. Our goal is to allow people concerned for their hearing health to quickly check their hearing within the comfort of their own homes.