The use of Talk:Aboutä and Co:Writerä in the WriteTalk Project
The WriteTalk project investigated the use of stories by non-speaking persons. Participants in the study used a narrative-based conversation system called Talk:Aboutä. Talk:Aboutä is a software package [Don Johnston Ltd] and is based on research carried out by researchers the Applied Computing Department at Dundee on pragmatic social interaction. Talk:Aboutä is different to other augmentative communication systems which are based on wants and needs using single words or phrases. Talk:Aboutä allows the user to relate experience through stories in addition to expressing needs and wants. Talk:Aboutä allows the user to initiate and control a conversation allowing the user’s own personality to shine through.
The interface screenshot shown below is an example of what Talk:Aboutä provides for the user:
Stories within the Talk:Aboutä system are stored with appropriate “topics” and “people” tags. The user can “set” the conversation environment using the “Who” and “What” buttons at the top of the screen – “Friend” and “Travel” have been selected in the example above. A list of “Suggested Stories” is updated according to the “Who” and “What”. In the example above, the user has retrieved a story called “holiday” by clicking on the story title in this list.
The “Story:Panel” above the story text window allows the user to navigate through the story text. The user can move the cursor to the beginning, or end, of the text; it can also be moved to the beginning of the previous or following sentence. The story can be spoken a sentence at a time by clicking the “speaker” and “speaker repeat” icons. This level of user control allows the user to respond to the listener while telling the story, thus encouraging turn taking. The following screenshot shows the automatic highlighting of the next sentence once the first sentence has been spoken.
On the right of the screen is the Quick:Chatä palette containing quick social-phrase buttons. The user can access phrases and sentences by clicking on the appropriate button. These buttons provide access to predictable chat, e.g. hello’s and goodbyes, and wants/needs communication. The conversation retrieved using Quick:Chatä is also linked to the “Who” and “What” buttons.
The screenshot below shows a different Talk:Aboutä setup. The Quick:Chatä window showing a selection of sentences after clicking the “Questions” button.
The Write:Talk project also used the Co:Writerä
predictability software in conjunction with Talk:Aboutä. Co:Writerä is a
word prediction program that makes the writing process easier and faster. (Research has shown that word prediction
can help users with language and spelling difficulties.) The user needs to be
able to identify the initial sound or sounds of the target word and produce the
desired letter. The program then offers the user a defined number of
possibilities of words beginning with the initial letters. The user can listen
to the suggested words by pointing with the mouse at each in turn. The chosen
word can be placed into the sentence by clicking on the chosen word.
Alternatively, the user can key in the number indicated at the left of the
target word. The software automatically adapts to the way the user forms
sentences and will predict words and phrases commonly used by the typist.
The user identifies the initial sound or sounds of the target word and types the desired letter. The program then offers the user a defined number of possibilities of words beginning with the initial letters. The user can listen to the suggested words by pointing with the mouse at each word in turn. The chosen word can be placed into the sentence by clicking on the chosen word. Alternatively, the user can key in the number indicated at the left of the target word. The software automatically adapts to the way the user forms sentences and will predict words and phrases commonly used by the typist.