The E-Rate program provides funding for libraries and schools to access affordable internet and telecommunications services. However, the participation rate of libraries is significantly lower than schools. Our project aimed to address this issue by creating a tool that would increase library participation rates. Through surveying over 60 libraries, we created multiple features for our tool to help increase library participation: an application walkthrough, discount rate calculator, peer library comparison, and many more. By making the E-Rate program more accessible to libraries, we hope to bridge the digital divide and improve the lives of those who rely on these services.

Carina is a two-sided matching platform for those who are in need of homecare and those who provide homecare. To address user concerns about unresponsiveness, our team conducted extensive research and user testing. Findings showed that users faced missed notifications, forgotten replies, and overlooked messages. To increase the number of successful matches, we developed innovative designs relating to an unread message summary and message notification reminders with a focus on user experience.

Despite its importance, creativity is often overlooked in society. Creativity promotes innovative solutions to complex problems and celebrates creatives in a variety of creative mediums. HEART is a platform that lowers the barrier of entry for anyone who wants to post and express their creative endeavors. Whether you're a seasoned artist or a beginner trying to explore your creativity, HEART welcomes you to share your work with the world. The heart of HEART is to bring people together.

Juno is a mobile application that provides evidence-based recovery protocols to patients recovering from C-section surgery. The app, created in partnership with medical professionals and recovery experts at UW Medicine, aims to reduce the incidence of post-surgery complications in the first weeks after surgery through daily check-ins, home care routines, and communication with medical staff, addressing the problem: "How might low-income mothers who have received a cesarean surgery within the Greater Seattle Area receive information on recovery care and warning signs of complications so that they can improve recovery outcomes in the first two weeks after surgery?"

Responsible for languages such as Klingon and Dothraki, constructed language creators invent the grammar, phonology, and lexicon of fictional languages - a practice known as “conlanging”. Despite the growing popularity of conlanging, conlangers lack sufficient tools to document their languages. In turn, conlangers devote significant time and effort towards recording information by-hand. In this capstone project our team collaborated with renowned conlangers David Peterson and Jessie Sams to create LangTime Engine, an application that simplifies the process of recording a conlang’s lexicon. As a result, we hope to ease the manual burden of conlangers and to make conlanging more accessible.

There is not enough emphasis on learning about the ocean in and outside the classroom. This, combined with rising concerns about climate change, inspired us to continue developing Marine Rescue. Marine Rescue is a game for elementary students to learn about human impacts on marine wildlife in the Pacific Northwest. Through interactive stories and short games, students build empathy for native species such as salmon and seagulls, and helping to solve their problems through fun, educational games. We hope that this will inspire the next generation to take action against ocean pollution and help solve climate change.

Microsoft Azure Lab Services (ALS) provides on-demand or scheduled access to pre-configured VM’s to execute classes, trainings, and workshops. Last year, ALS released a new update consisting of improved and enhanced functionalities. Research insights suggest that customers take 1-month for migration, facing problems like frequent manual configurations, inconsistent documentation & hassle of communicating with customer service teams. The goal of this project is to design and develop a seamless migration experience, that enables customers to seamlessly migrate to the latest version. This migration experience reduced operational overhead for customers, empowering them to focus on tasks that effectively matter the most.

Trying to find information can be tough, especially when a website has lots of product offerings. Microsoft Learn users are facing difficulty because of the myriad of information, confusing UI, and lack of filter options. We conducted in-depth user research with surveys, interviews, and analysis and rendered 5 evidence-based solutions to improve the search experience on Microsoft Learn. Further, We developed an end-to-end roadmap to implement these recommendations and visualized them with a high-fidelity prototype. We expect these changes to provide improved content quality and relevance along with ease of use, saving significant time for the users.

With the expanding growth of music streaming platforms and subscriptions, listeners around the world use music as a way of expression and personal enjoyment. However, there are flaws within the music recommendation algorithms which recycle oversaturated content, lack transparency, and have innate popularity bias. Our app, Moments, aims to combat restrictive algorithms by giving users autonomy in the music discovery process. Through profiles and a map interface, people can discover and share music in an organic way by exploring others' music tastes around them. But that's just our Moment, what's yours?

As children around the world are spending less time outdoors compared to previous generations, their screen time has increased. This can negatively impact their nature-related science learning, as well as cause a decline in their behavioral and emotional development. NatureCollections is a mobile app that seeks to harness the power of emerging technologies to engage elementary school children in an exploration of the natural world. Leveraging kids’ love for collecting things, the app encourages kids to go outside and have fun while developing a stronger connection with their natural surroundings.