Alternative access in Grid 3

Voco Chat has been designed to be suitable for a range of access methods.

Auditory prompts have been included for every cell and every column and can be turned on in the user’s access method settings.

For your chosen access method you can turn on auditory prompts by going to Settings > Access, then selecting your access method. Then, under Highlighting, change the dropdown box which says ‘No sound when highlighting’ to ‘Speak description when hightlighting’.

Touch

You can use Voco Chat with a Keyguard, as there are always the same number of cells on every grid.

If you are using Touch with Dwell, where you touch a cell for a certain amount of time before the cell selects, there are options to increase or decrease the amount of dwell time by going to My toolkit > Settings > My Access. If you use Touch with Dwell to select, you can also turn on auditory prompts, to hear the label on each cell before you select it.

Pointer or Eye Gaze

If you are using either pointer or eye gaze with dwell, a Rest cell will be visible on every grid, in the top right corner. This allows the user to pause their access method at any time and look around the screen without selecting any cells. This can be helpful when a user is familiarising themselves with a new grid. When the Rest cell is activated, and pointer or eye gaze is paused, communication partners can still make selections on the screen using touch. This can be helpful for modelling and teaching someone what they can say on that grid.

Switches

Vocabulary is organised in vertical columns in Voco Chat, so the recommended switch settings are those which scan either one cell at a time vertically, or scan columns then rows.