Description
Lightkey AT for people with disabilities
Lightkey AT - Designed for People with Disabilities
Lightkey AT (available as Pro AT and Business AT) was designed especially for people with disabilities, with the guidance of people with disabilities. This edition incorporates unique features for various types of disabilities and includes a new onboarding dialogue that helps tailor the user experience to the specific disability. New accessibility features include a read-aloud functionality for predictions and spelling corrections, as well as additional features for neurodivergent audiences, dyslexia, dexterity and more. In addition, the entire onboarding dialogue as well as the main Dashboard and AT menus are screen reader-compatible to enable a smooth onboarding for the visually impaired.
5 ways that Lightkey helps people with disabilities
Can Lightkey really help all types of users? This was one of the questions we faced since we started developing Lightkey. And as it often happens when launching “mainstream” technology aiming to solve big problems, we learned that users come in all sizes and shapes. After releasing Lightkey’s earlier editions back in October 2016, we started getting some interesting and unexpected feedback.
It started with a message we received from an occupational therapist who works for a charity that supports people with disabilities. Following a short evaluation and discussing the pros and cons with us, she decided to recommend one of her patients with CP (Cerebral Palsy) to use Lightkey, and then later shared her recommendation with other patients. Since then, we’ve been contacted by a few caregivers working for similar organizations in the UK and in the USA, who also recommend their communities and patients with disabilities to use Lightkey as an assistive technology solution.
As a result, we decided to take it one step further and developed a dedicated edition that optimizes Lightkey’s predictive writing experience for People With Disabilities.
#1 – Dyslexia or other learning difficulties
Dyslexia is a learning disorder that can make it challenging to read, write, and spell words correctly. Lightkey’s real-time correction technology will correct your text as you type instead of the traditional post-correction approach considered as the industry standard. This new writing experience reduces the frustration of having to continually review and correct mistakes, resulting in reduced mental strain required for writing. Furthermore, Lightkey improves communication, both in personal and professional settings, and helps individuals with dyslexia achieve their goals more effectively and confidently. Lightkey’s real-time correction engine is further optimized in the AT edition to deliver the best experience for its users.
#2 – Dexterity or other physical typing difficulties
Typing and writing on a personal computer is a basic daily activity for many people. However, for individuals with dexterity or other physical disabilities, this task can be extremely challenging. Dexterity is the disability to move your fingers and hands with precision and speed, which is essential for typing accurately and efficiently. As Lightkey adapts itself to the user’s writing style, it significantly reduces the number of keystrokes and physical effort required to complete a sentence. In the AT edition, Lightkey is deeply optimized to minimize the number of keystrokes required, delivering both comfort and productivity to its users.
#3 – Color blindness
Color blindness is a condition that affects a person's ability to distinguish between certain colors. There are an estimated 300 million people in the world with color vision deficiency. 1 in 12 men is color blind (8%). 1 in 200 women is color blind (0.5%). Traditional text prediction tools use colors that are visually similar to the color of the written text, which is helpful to most users but challenging for those who are color blinded. Lightkey AT edition provides color themes that target all common types of color blindness, enabling the user to easily distinguish between the written text and Lightkey’s predictions or real-time corrections.
#4 – Visual impairment
Visual impairment, also known as low vision, refers to a range of conditions that affect a person's ability to see, and can be caused by a variety of factors, including eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma as well as injuries to the eye or brain. Lightkey’s AT edition can assist the visually impaired by reading aloud both predictions and corrections in a customizable voice and speed, supporting any SAPI-based voice that is either natively installed by Windows or externally installed by a 3rd party TTS provider. Watch the following demo to learn more:
#5 – Mental health
Communication can be a challenge for individuals with mental health issues, particularly if they struggle with social anxiety or difficulty expressing themselves. Lightkey’s writing assistant encourages its users to focus on their ideas rather than worrying about how to express them, which can reduce anxiety and increase the quality of their writing. As Lightkey “grows” along with its user, it can significantly free up mental energy required to composing content. Furthermore, this comes without the fear of losing the personal touch, improving social relationships and overall well-being.