how inclusive design and accessibility are related:

After doing research and reading the Articles and chapters required for this class I have a better understanding of why we need more inclusive and accessible designs in the world and just how important they are to make everyday life just a bit easier for some people. Inclusive and accessible designs are similar but different. inclusive designs are targeted towards making an app or a web page be able to be used by a wider range of people while accessible designs are designs that keep in mind people with disabilities in all genres. While they both help people be able to use web and apps, accessible designs  will have some aspects of the design that won’t be able to be used by anyone while Inclusive designs can be used by anyone. For my first project in interactive design I don’t think my design was accessible or inclusive by any means. I struggled with getting a product that I was proud of  so I didn’t Focus as much on being able to Market it as inclusive or accessible. for my second design I think I kept it in mind a little bit more but I don’t think that it was entirely inclusive or accessible by any means. I did think that creating a website was incredibly important for my project and interactive media too, even though we were required to do one, because my app was centered towards people that might be looking to utilize the donations from the community and that might not have access to their own phone or tablet. This would allow people to use a library computer to look up the information that might be able to help them. I think this was the most inclusive part of my design as it would allow computer software that helps people with disabilities be able to look up the information they need. those phones nowadays have a lot of internal software that can help apps that weren’t designed to be inclusive or accessible be more inclusive or accessible computer software by far has the most internal software that can modify apps or web pages to be more legible, to have text to speech or read out what buttons there are so someone who’s blind can know what they’re looking at. I found a few websites that went over why it’s important to have inclusive and accessible design and another website going into more depth about what accessible and inclusive design is. Since we all know what accessible and inclusive design is, I’ll just restate the five points made by Applause on why we designers need to keep accessibility and inclusive design in mind when creating apps or websites. Equitable access, Companies who got away with not making inclusive design for far too long and in a world where it is far too common for people to be born or develop conditions where they might need inclusive or accessible design so now it’s time to step up the game. Improved usability, If you take into account inclusive and accessible design usability of your app will rise. You up your user reach, app designs with accessible or inclusive design can reach a wider audience. And finally there are already standards for app usability but companies are just choosing to ignore them.  

What is community fridge:

When I was growing up in a low income household I was always aware of how much food cost. Healthy food tends to cost more and more every year and people who have low income tend to struggle with being able to afford food from places like Whole foods. I also noticed that we have a lot of food waste in the food industry and in lift in general. I can’t tell you how many times I have thrown out an unopened thing of yogurt because I wasn’t going to eat it, or how many times I haven’t been able to finish the loaf of bread. So for this project I wanted to create an app/website that would allow people in similar communities to share food that they may not be able to use up in time to help prevent food waste and help people have access to safe food. When we throw away food we are not just wasting food according to the rescuing leftover cuisine they state “Half of the U.S. land, 80% of fresh water, and 10% of the energy budget is spent bringing food to our tables*. When we waste 40% of food, we waste 40% of these natural resources.”  meaning we are wasting more and more resources every year when we waste food. Think of all the food fast food workers throw out throughout the week. I work for Starbucks and they do alright because we are able to donate to shelters, but places like Dunkin donuts have to throw out all of their extra food at the end of the night. My app will allow people to share food they may have going out or extra of by putting them in community fridges. I used to have one of these when I lived in a rough neighborhood and it really helped us be able to eat foods we might not have had enough money for thanks to the kindness of the community. I want to make both a web and app design because I know that not everyone can have access to phones to download an app but I think that if it can also be viewed on the web then people could potentially view from a library or community computer. It is important that everyone has access to safe food, so let’s make it more accessible.

How I redesigned my app:

Original design:

New design: