Speak For Yourself AAC

A Colorful Keyboard Option You Can Use in Speak for Yourself

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by

Heidi LoStracco, MS, CCC-SLP
in

Last week, I spent some time going through my follow up items from the Closing the Gap Conference, and there has been a lot of discussion around color coding in the Speak for Yourself User’s Group.   This seems like a good time to share some information about a colorful new keyboard.  I consistently avoid commenting about competing products, and I think that’s a good policy. However, I do think it is important to share information that is not product dependent that may help a far-reaching population.  So, I am going to do that with this short post.

During the conference, I had the opportunity to speak with two of the AssistiveWare team members,  Jennifer Marden and David Niemeijer. I’ve come to look forward to my conversations with them at conferences, and hope that it is a mutual feeling.  Creating products for the same purpose actually amount to professionals who have a lot in common and a lot to discuss.

Anyway, part of our conversation included a demo of their new keyboards…along with the realization that they can be used in Speak for Yourself!  They can actually be used in any app that uses Apple’s standard keyboard.  So, last week, after iOS 8.1 was released (more on that in a second), I downloaded the Keedogo Plus keyboard.   The current cost is  $2.99 USD. There is also a beginner version that is currently $1.99.  This is IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING iOS 8.1 (or above) IF YOU ARE GOING TO INSTALL THIS KEYBOARD.  In versions below 8.1, it freezes the app.  Here are some pictures of the keyboard in Speak for Yourself:

You’ll notice that it is very brightly colored and the vowels are red to differentiate them.  This is a picture of the uppercase keyboard.  One thing that I still find myself getting used to is that the “Caps lock” is on the right side of the keyboard. (On the standard keyboard, you have to double tap the up arrow/shift key on the left side).  My motor planning is pretty strong for that double tap of the left shift button.

Uppercase letters on the keyboard.
Uppercase letters on the keyboard.

Because I am easily amused by technology, one of the things I like about it is that the letters change to lowercase when shift is not pressed.

Lowercase letters on the keyboard.
Lowercase letters on the keyboard.

I also like the smart word prediction that has figured out that if I type “Speak,” there’s a good chance that I’m typing “Speak for Yourself.”

Keedogo keyboard "predicting" that I am going to type "Speak for Yourself."
Keedogo keyboard “predicting” that I am going to type “Speak for Yourself.”

If you’re looking for a little color (actually A LOT of color!) in your keyboarding world, you have options.

Comments

3 responses to “A Colorful Keyboard Option You Can Use in Speak for Yourself”

  1. Jennifer Marden Avatar
    Jennifer Marden

    Thanks, Heidi, for your kind words! David and I also look forward to catching up with you at conferences, and despite being competitors, we enjoy cheering on Speak for Yourself and have great respect for you and Renee. We’re glad you like Keedogo in combination with Speak for Yourself. One of the things we’re excited about with the keyboard extensions is the ability to improve access to typing and word prediction in all apps, not just ours. Speaking of color coding, in the next update of Keedogo and Keedogo Plus, you’ll be able to select a “gray” theme that’s more adult looking, and turn on or off the color coding of vowels. This should make the keyboard more appropriate for older users and for those distracted rather than helped by the high contrast bright colors. The update has been submitted to Apple for review, so hopefully it will be available soon.

    Reply
    1. heidilostracco Avatar
      heidilostracco

      Thanks, Jennifer! I’ll be on the lookout for the update! One of the questions in our User’s Group was whether there would be an option to color code the individual buttons of the keyboard? That type of color coding and patterns (as you probably know) is helpful for some students with CVI/visual issues. Also, is there the ability to turn word prediction off in the Keedogo Plus?

      Reply
  2. Jennifer Marden Avatar
    Jennifer Marden

    Good questions, I’ll try to answer without going on too long 🙂

    We actually have three keyboards – Keedogo, Keedogo Plus, and Keeble. The last one, Keeble, was released after we saw you at Closing the Gap, so I don’t know if we mentioned it to you or showed it to you.

    Keedogo is the most basic, and the least expensive. It’s intended for beginning typers without special needs. It will not autocapitalize sentences or automatically add spaces after punctuation – the assumption is that for this audience, it is important not to do these things automatically when a child is first learning to type, so they can learn the “rules” of typing. In Keedogo 1.1 (not yet released), you’ll be able to choose between a color or gray theme, an ABC or QWERTY layout, whether or not to color the vowels (but not what color to color them), and whether to change the label case to lower or upper case depending on the status of the shift key. You will be able to configure Keedogo 1.1 from the keyboard itself – go to the 123 page and tap the button with the gears.

    Keedogo Plus is intended for beginning typers who may have special learning needs and who may be struggling writers. It has all the features that Keedogo has, and adds word prediction, automatic capitalization, and automatic space after punctuation. You can configure it in the same way as you configure Keedogo 1.1. You will also be able to configure the word prediction – height of the word prediction bar, number of predictions, how many predictions to show, and whether words are learned by the prediction engine.

    Keeble is intended for people with special access needs, including fine motor and vision impairments. It has the most configurability, with more features to come later in Keeble 2.0. In Keeble 1.1, you will be able to configure the keyboard in the Keeble app rather than from the keyboard itself (as in Keedogo). Keeble has all the features that Keedogo has, and additional features for customizing the keyboard colors, alternative access features, and auditory feedback.

    To answer your question about color coding, in Keeble only, you can choose from a palette of colors for the vowels, background color of the keyboard, background color of standard keys (letters and punctuation), background color of the return, backspace, shift, and navigation keys, key label color, and prediction button background and label colors. You won’t be able to individually color keys or rearrange them – just set colors for groups of keys. And in Keedogo and Keedogo Plus, you can only choose between the color and gray themes. So this may or may not be the answer to the color coding discussion on the User’s Group.

    Keeble 1.0 has these alternative access features hold duration (to ignore short accidental touches), and Select on Release (to allow a user to slide a finger around the screen and select by living the finger up). Keeble 1.1 will have a settable Backspace Repeat functionality, and auditory cues will be available for key names and key click sounds, as well as speak as you type for letter, word, or sentence. Keeble 2.0 will have additional features for scanning users. We have no release date for Keeble 2.0, but Keeble 1.1 has been submitted to the app store (along with Keedogo 1.1 and Keedogo Plus 1.1) and we hope they will be released soon.

    Hope this is not too long – of course edit as needed!

    Reply

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