Capstone Projects | Information School | University of Washington

thread4thread: Trans+ Clothing Exchange Web Application

This project improves access to gender-affirming clothing for Seattle's trans and LGBTQ+ community, addressing the challenges they face in obtaining clothes that reflect their authentic selves. Many transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals experience ridicule, discrimination, and violence, making body reclamation through clothing crucial for their well-being. Current shopping experiences cater to cisgender bodies, posing barriers and safety risks for the trans+ community. By developing a localized platform to facilitate the exchange of clothing and gender-affirming items, this project will harness the community's potential to uplift one another, promoting a supportive and inclusive environment for self-expression and identity exploration.

Thrivelution: Creating a Mobile App for Matching Patients and Therapists

Alli Connect (formerly called Thrivelution) seeks to address the urgent mental health needs of Gen Z by offering an innovative platform that pairs patients with their ideal therapists, resulting in better outcomes for both parties. Our team, Psychormation, is integrating the current web service from Alli Connect into a mobile application that provides a much-needed and accessible solution for Gen Z's mental health challenges. Using our mobile application, clients can complete an onboarding survey to receive personalized therapist recommendations, view detailed therapist profiles, and easily connect with the therapists they are interested in.

Transplanting Grapevine: Updating the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Employee Intranet

Grapevine, the Puget Sound Regional Council’s intranet, is a resource rich with HR documents, historical records, and more. However, it is inconvenient to access, requiring VPN login, and challenging to navigate. For my Capstone, I began planning to update and rebuild Grapevine using Microsoft SharePoint. I conducted a survey to learn how staff currently use Grapevine and researched how to build a SharePoint intranet site to meet PSRC’s needs. Utilizing my findings, I drafted a site map and a SharePoint hub for future user-testing. This project will help the PSRC Library Manager build a better organized and more user-friendly Grapevine.

A Sprout's Journey: Increasing Agricultural Awareness and Reading Proficiency Through Online Interactivity

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused decreasing public elementary school student engagement yet increasing comfort with low-quality online teaching. This is contributing to falling student reading capability and teachers' lack of incentive to challenge their students further through the incorporation of a science curriculum, leaving students underprepared to handle the increase in greener initiatives. To address these informational gaps, Sprout aims to deliver to elementary school students from grades 1-3 an interactive web-based storybook that introduces environmental education while increasing reading proficiencies by incorporating elements of both the English Language Arts Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

Aida: Visualizing Medical Needs for Limited English Proficiency Users

8.6% of the American population are not proficient in English and find it difficult to access healthcare that is predominately provided in English. Communication issues caused by language barriers make Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals vulnerable to poor health outcomes. To help tackle this information problem, we created Aida. Aida is an app that allows users to input their symptoms in their preferred language, using our visual process. We generate an easy-to-read symptom card to show their doctor. Our solution reduces the stress and difficulty of communicating symptoms and supports LEP users in receiving the effective healthcare they deserve.

BARK: Your Virtual Support Animal

BARK! is a platform that provides digital companionship with a virtual support animal. While traditional emotional support animals are a great resource for those who are struggling with their mental wellbeing, they remain inaccessible to many who could benefit from a support animal. Through simple interactions with the virtual pet, mental check-ins, assistance with scheduling, and information about real emotional support animals, BARK! strives to provide individuals with a sense of companionship and support that a traditional emotional support animal would provide, in a significantly more accessible medium.

BlockHealth: Empowering Healthcare workers with the Blockchain

In today's competitive job market, credentials are increasingly used to identify a worker's skills and experience. Current credential practices lack the ability for an individual to verify this information and build trust between workers and employers. BlockHealth aims to provide workers with credible ownership of the credentials they earned through the decentralized nature of the Ethereum blockchain. This project was sponsored by Last Myle LLC. The initial target user group for this product is healthcare workers.

Bump: The Recommendation App for Things to Do in Seattle

Plenty of people move into the Seattle area from out of state for a variety of reasons and the first thing they'll notice is the Seattle Freeze, a held belief that Seattle is a very difficult place to make new friends. Well, the best way to meet people is by going out and doing things you love or maybe trying something new. Bump, is here to do just that! Through the app, you can get personalized recommendations for places to go in the area, and soon you'll be able to recommend others places just like any local.

Bussin’ Goods: Instant E-Commerce for UW Startups

The technical overhead of implementing an e-commerce platform is often difficult to manage for startups without time or capital. This is particularly true for business and entrepreneurship students at UW, who are working to develop their business plan and execute it during the academic year. Bussin’ Goods aims to solve this problem by offering a turnkey e-commerce solution tailored to the needs of student startups that are selling physical goods. Our tool allows these students to focus on making their products as innovative and socially impactful as possible, helping them generate revenue faster.

Carbonet: Your Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Home Gardening

Research shows that over half of American households engage in gardening activities, with a rise of over 18 million new gardeners since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, what has also been on the rise is global greenhouse gas emissions. Our solution is Carbonet – a platform for new gardening enthusiasts to reduce their carbon footprints through home gardening. Through our virtual, personalized trackers and community features, home gardeners can not only reach new milestones in gardening more efficiently, but can also make a measurable difference in combating global climate change.

iSchool Capstone

2023