BrowSee

Inspiration

Online shopping should be accessible to everyone, but visually impaired users struggle to navigate platforms like Facebook Marketplace, where product images play a crucial role. This extension was designed to bridge that gap by using AI-powered image recognition to provide meaningful descriptions.

What It Does

This Chrome extension was built to:

Generate AI-powered image descriptions using OpenAI Vision API. Provide screen-reader-friendly output for better accessibility. Enhance navigation with a simple UI built using Bootstrap. The goal was to help visually impaired users understand product listings more easily.

How I Built It

AI Integration: OpenAI Vision API for image recognition. Frontend: HTML, JavaScript, and Bootstrap for a responsive UI. Chrome Extension APIs: Injects accessibility features into Facebook Marketplace.

Challenges I Ran Into

Facebook Marketplace’s dynamic content loading made it difficult to consistently extract and process images. API request limitations affected real-time performance. Screen reader integration issues caused inconsistent text output.

What Went Wrong?

Unfortunately, the extension did not work as expected due to:

Difficulties in reliably accessing image elements on Facebook Marketplace. Issues with API response timing that resulted in missing or delayed descriptions. Screen reader compatibility challenges that prevented smooth text-to-speech output.

What I Learned

Even though the extension didn’t function as intended, I gained valuable insights into:

Debugging browser extensions and handling dynamic web content. Limitations of AI image recognition in real-world applications. Web accessibility and screen reader support, which will help improve future projects.

What’s Next?

Exploring alternative ways to extract images reliably, such as intercepting network requests. Optimizing API calls to handle dynamic page updates better. Improving screen reader integration for smoother user experience. Reworking the extension for future iterations to ensure a working solution.

Built With

• bootstrap
• css
• javascript
• vision-api-open-ai