Role
Timeline
Skills
Create a digital product that helps University of Washington students recover lost items quickly
A hub for lost items
Because this was a class project, I relied on assumptions and peer feedback which revealed pain points:
Chaotic communication → scattered across Reddit, Snapchat, and word-of-mouth
Slow updates → students miss items without alerts
Unclear ownership → hard to know if an item is still available
Lack of trust → unsafe or embarrassing to share personal contact info directly on social media
Goal: Find or report a lost item quickly between classes
Visit UW Lost & Found site
If user has lost an item → Browse or filter listings
Claim an item → Poster receives notification email
If user has found an item → Submit a lost item form
Each listing contains item photo & information with a claim option
Submission form to post found items
Sample email received by poster when item is claimed
Homepage
Submission Form
Refined sketches into clean, consistent layouts in Figma
Added improved spacing, consistent input fields, and filter drop-downs
Homepage
Submission Form
Applied UW branding with purple/white theme
Included sample photos for listings
Increased button size, bolded headings
High-fidelity prototype walk-through demo
Connected mockup screens in Figma to simulate real interactions
Added clickable flows for posting, browsing, filtering, and claiming items
Prepared the design for development
Built a popup confirmation: “Claimed! The item poster has been notified and you should receive an email shortly"
The final product was fully coded in Flask, not just designed in Figma. While less visually polished than the high-fidelity prototype, it functioned end-to-end with real submissions, filters, email notifications, and image uploads.
The final product was fully coded in Flask, not just designed in Figma. While less visually polished than the high-fidelity prototype, it functioned end-to-end with real submissions, filters, email notifications, and image uploads.
Fidelity gap → The flask version didn’t fully match the polish of the Figma mockups, a reminder of the design-development gap
Visual polish → Text and buttons ended up smaller than ideal, I’d enlarge them for readability and accessibility
Email integration → I used my personal email to register for EmailJS. For a real deployment, I’d set up a dedicated uw-lost-found@gmail.com account
Authentication → Add UW NetID login to secure submissions and prevent spam
Admin support → Partner with UW to integrate into official services
Enhanced notifications → Expand alerts beyond email to SMS/text
Scalability → Transition from CSV storage to a robust database
Impact → Centralized lost & found solved a real need
What I learned → Strengthened skills in full-stack development, integrated EmailJS API for real-time alerts, and designed with accessibility in mind
