FreeSpeechApp4VT

Gupta, Chaitanya; Oh, Samuel; Cho, Andy

FreeSpeechApp4VT

dc.contributor.author	Gupta, Chaitanya	en
dc.contributor.author	Oh, Samuel	en
dc.contributor.author	Cho, Andy	en
dc.date.accessioned	2022-05-09T18:42:29Z	en
dc.date.available	2022-05-09T18:42:29Z	en
dc.date.issued	2022-05-08	en
dc.description.abstract	Over the course of his career, Mr. Matthew Newton, the coordinator of Assistive and Education Technology at Virginia Tech, has been working with applications and assistive technology in order to aid those who require non-verbal communication, to receive the means to do so. The FreeSpeech4VT project was launched under the direction of Mr. Newton to provide a free-of-cost tablet application that would allow users to easily communicate using type-to-speech functionality. Our goal as a team was to create an application that could provide basic and advanced implementations of features that paid-applications offer, while also promoting user customization of the application itself. The project consists of one mobile application that pulls from the device’s local data and is able to store data into the device’s memory based on user input of words/tiles. Although cross-platform applications could provide more flexibility and accessibility for users depending on what operating system their devices run on, our team found it best to implement a thorough iPadOS application due to the high frequency of iPad usage for communicative purposes. This application is designed for anyone who may struggle to communicate verbally, both temporarily or more long-term. There were some design choices to be more friendly towards those who may have difficulty with motor function as well. The range of people that can use this application is immense; it can be anywhere from someone who is unable to speak at all and may have some motor function issues to someone who has laryngitis and is able to type out sentences just not speak or speak loudly for some time. We began by meeting with Mr. Newton to discuss his vision. Because ergonomics with the target user-group in mind was so important, we spent a lot of time on iterative design and wireframing, getting feedback and making improvements, and finally getting approval. We then began implementing the design as well as basic Text-To-Speech (TTS) functionality. After that, we implemented more customizability-centric functionality to allow both ease-of-setup for caretakers and ease-of-use for users. We obtained feedback via bi-weekly client meetings. We have delivered an iPadOS application, this report, a final slide presentation, and a video walkthrough of the application in use.	en
dc.description.notes	This submission contains source code for an iPadOS application, a final report, a final presentation, and a video walkthrough of the application in use. The source code (FreespeechVT-main.zip) should be downloaded and opened via Xcode on MacOS. Then, it can either be run on the built-in iPad simulator (any iPad model) or can be loaded onto a physical iPad device (iPadOS 15.0 or newer) and run there. There are two versions of the report, one in PDF that is portable, and one as a .docx file that is editable. There are also two versions of the presentation, one in PDF that is portable, and one as a .pptx file that is editable. There is also a video walkthrough of the application being used (FreeSpeechApp4VT - Application Walkthrough.mp4) that should be used as a quick-start guide on how to use the application.	en
dc.format.mimetype	video/mp4	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10919/109972	en
dc.language.iso	en_US	en
dc.publisher	Virginia Tech	en
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/	en
dc.subject	Assistive technology	en
dc.subject	iPadOS	en
dc.subject	Text-to-Speech	en
dc.subject	Customizability	en
dc.subject	Ergonomics	en
dc.title	FreeSpeechApp4VT	en
dc.type	Presentation	en
dc.type	Report	en
dc.type	Video	en
dc.type	Other	en