Image Share with the DIAGRAM Center

Date: February 2017

Services: Coaching and Office Hours, Community Prototyping Sessions, Spot Checks

Sina sits around a large wooden table with two men with medium light skin tone. They are focused on laptops and discussion. A white tabletop sign in the foreground reads "Annotations." On the table are multiple laptops, stainless steel water bottles, plates with snacks, utensils, and a red canned drink. In the background are wooden double doors with window panels and blue-tinted light coming through, giving the scene an office or classroom meeting-room atmosphere.

PAC worked with Benetech’s DIAGRAM Center to conceptualize and build Image Share, a fully accessible web application that helps educators, students, families, and accessibility professionals discover, evaluate, and reuse accessible STEM learning materials more efficiently.

Media

An indoor meeting or study room with several men with medium light skin tone seated around tables. In the foreground, Sina is engaged in conversation. On the table there is a laptop, a pair of over-ear headphones, a coffee cup, papers, and cables. In the background, more people sit at another table using laptops. The room has beige walls, rolling chairs, round tables, carpeted flooring, and a door on the left.

Sina and six adults with light skin tone gathered around a table working collaboratively on laptops. The setting appears to be a cafe or restaurant with warm lighting, stone walls, and wine shelves in the background. They wear business casual clothes and name tags. Multiple laptops, coffee cups, notebooks, and phones are spread across the table. Some people are seated and typing, while others stand or lean in around one laptop.

Project Description

PAC worked with Benetech’s DIAGRAM Center initiative to conceptualize and build Image Share, a fully accessible web application designed to help educators, students, families, and accessibility professionals find and share accessible educational materials for STEM learning.

The accessibility community needed better ways to discover appropriate materials for key concepts, including 2-D and 3-D STEM models, astronomy diagrams, tactile graphics, and other specialized learning resources. These materials are often expensive and time-intensive to produce, and without a shared discovery platform, organizations duplicate work while learners and educators struggle to find resources that already exist.

Image Share addressed that need by allowing users to search across multiple resource collections and apply search parameters that supported more personalized discovery. Rather than treating accessible educational materials as isolated files held by separate organizations, the platform helped create a shared collection that made those resources easier to find, evaluate, and reuse.

PAC designed and built the application in a short period of time, with accessibility integrated throughout the experience. The result was a practical, user-centered tool that helped reduce redundancy, improve discoverability, and connect learners with accessible STEM materials more efficiently.