Progress and updates from the Nuvoic Project as they happened.
Conór’s interview with Michael Cash
Nuvoic participant Conór interviews Voiceitt’s Product Specialist Michael Cash about his role with Voiceitt and how he uses their dictation app for work and in his personal life. They also talk about disability and assistive technology, as well as the really important questions: ‘Coffee or tea?’, ‘Crisps or chocolate?’ ‘Dog or cat?’ and ‘What made you smile today?’! This is the latest of a series of ‘Chat with Conór’ interviews, you can see the others on his YouTube channel: Conor O’Kane – YouTube. Great job Conór and thanks for sharing this!
Posted: April 2023
Nuvoic at Queen Alexandra College
Five learners at Queen Alexandra College in Birmingham have generously donated voice samples through the Nuvoic Project to support Voiceitt’s development of accessible speech technology. Many thanks to learners and the staff team at QAC for your support!
Read their article to find out more!
Posted: April 2023
Daniel becomes Voiceitt’s latest Ambassador
Nuvoic participant Daniel Burgess, from Cheshire, has been testing Voiceitt’s original app for several months and has recently started to test their new dictation app. He shared the following photo and quote with Voiceitt, to help let people know about their technology and how it can help people with atypical speech. Great work Daniel!
Posted: March 2023
Best presentation award at ICDD
In February 2023, our Technologist Geena Vabulas represented the Nuvoic team at the International Conference on Disability and Diversity. Our presentation was about our methods and results from the Nuvoic Project: how the Karten Network team has supported participants to test and share feedback on Voiceitt’s accessible speech technology, and contribute to their development work by donating speech samples. We knew she’d do a great job and the conference organisers agreed – awarding her Best Presentation in our group. Excellent work Geena and everyone!
Posted: February 2023
Claire dictates her poetry using Voiceitt’s new webapp
Poet and Nuvoic participant Claire Holtaway uses Voiceitt’s new dictation app to help write and record her poems. Check out her demo below! Many thanks for sharing your work with us, Claire 🙂
Posted: February 2023
Nuvoic Project – January 2023 update
Now into the final few months of the Nuvoic Project, our participants continue to make amazing contributions to the development of Voiceitt’s accessible voice technology. Having collectively submitted over 24,000 recordings to Voiceitt’s database of atypical speech, some participants are now starting to test Voiceitt’s new dictation tool, designed for users with dysarthric speech to transcribe their words in real-time.
Progress review: from single phrases to real-time transcription for spontaneous atypical speech
Since 2020, our team has supported people whose speech and communication is affected by conditions such as cerebral palsy, stroke, brain injury, Down’s syndrome and motor neurone disease, to test and help improve Voiceitt’s accessible speech recognition. Voiceitt supports communication and voice control of smart technologies, enabling users to be more independent and autonomous, and to have their voices heard.
Many of our early participants asked for more flexible recognition from Voiceitt – for the app to interpret whatever they want to say without having to stick to pre-trained phrases. In 2021 Voiceitt launched Ensemble, asking people with atypical speech to donate recordings to help work towards this goal. So far, 39 Nuvoic participants have registered and between them have submitted an incredible 24,000 recordings ?? Congratulations and a huge thank you to everyone who’s contributed!
During 2022, Voiceitt used these recordings to work on real-time recognition for spontaneous speech, as shown in this video: Voiceitt transcription demo video. While in the early stages, this is exciting progress with promising applications for in-person communication, captioning, dictation and device control. Our first few participants are now starting to test the transcription tool and we’re excited to see the results – watch this space!
We’re still accepting new participants, now including children under 13, so please get in touch if you or people you support would like to get involved. Please see our web pages or contact our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk for more information.
Other Updates
In November the Nuvoic team attended the TechAbility conference in Birmingham. Project Co-ordinator Liz co-presented with AT Manager Dave Hursthouse from Leonard Cheshire, describing how our teams have collaborated to support residents at Hill House Care Home take part in Nuvoic. We spoke to lots of delegates about the project at our exhibition stand and saw some great presentations from other organisations.
In December, Voiceitt’s Customer Service Manager and Speech Therapist Rachel Levy was interviewed about Voiceitt’s latest developments by the Indata Project for their Assistive Technology Update podcast.
Upcoming events include a short slot at Tech For Disability’s Startup Showcase on 25th January, and the International Conference on Disability and Diversity on 16th February, where our Technologist Geena will present on behalf of the Nuvoic team.
Fond farewells
As Nuvoic draws to a close in April, we’ll be sadly losing our two Project Technologists, Sean Connolly and Geena Vabulas, at the end of February. Sean and Geena have made a huge and much-valued contribution to the project over the past two years, delivering excellent support to participants, families and support teams, and helping to promote and disseminate our work in many different settings. Both are moving on to exciting new roles where we wish them every success. Thank you both for playing such key roles in Nuvoic, you will be much missed by the Karten team and all those you’ve worked with!
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, or someone you know may be interested in taking part in donating speech samples or testing Voiceitt’s technology. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: January 2023
Happy holidays!
Here’s a quick video to wish everyone very happy holidays ⛄ ❄️ and a happy New Year 🎉. Many thanks to our participants Conór and Dan for joining in with us this year! With best wishes from all at the Karten Network.
Posted: December 2022
Nuvoic at TechAbility
On 16th November the Nuvoic Project team attended the TechAbility conference in Birmingham.
Project Coordinator Liz and AT Manager Dave Hursthouse from Leonard Cheshire gave a talk about how two Leonard Cheshire residents have been testing the Voiceitt app and donating speech recordings to help Voiceitt develop their new dictation tool.
We had lots of visitors to our stand and the photos and video clips of our participants really helped to show off everybody’s fantastic work and encourage new participants to join. Thanks to everyone involved for giving us so much to talk about!
Posted: November 2022
Happy Halloween!
Our Technologist Sean has made a super spooky video showing some spooktacular Alexa commands. Please email sean@karten-network.org.uk if you would like any details about how he set these up. Wishing everyone a very spooky Halloween from all at the Karten Network!
Posted: October 2022
Nuvoic project – Autumn 2022 update
Now into our third and final year of the Nuvoic Project, we’re seeing exciting progress in Voiceitt’s work on automatic speech recognition for atypical speech, and significant developments on their new dictation and captioning tool. Results are at an early stage, but they look promising!
Continuous recognition of atypical speech
Voiceitt’s app already supports people with atypical speech to communicate and control Smart Home technologies more easily, but users currently have to train each phrase in advance. In the next release, Voiceitt aims to offer real-time recognition to transcribe users’ speech without the need to pre-train every phrase.
To achieve this Voiceitt have launched Project Ensemble, a website where volunteers can donate recordings of atypical speech patterns as training data for Voiceitt’s recognition models. Through Nuvoic, we’ve been recruiting participants, offering support to take part and gift cards as a thank you for all contributions. So far the Karten team has supported 28 people to join Ensemble, who have uploaded an amazing 15,000 phrases in total – congratulations and thank you to everyone who’s contributed so far! ??
Voiceitt are already using these and recordings from other participants around the world to develop a new dictation and captioning tool. In the video below, Michael demonstrates his personal speech model providing live captions through Zoom (Zoom’s built-in captioning doesn’t work for Michael’s speech). Users can also dictate text to use in messages or documents, or to share onscreen with a conversation partner. While this technology is still at an early stage it’s a significant improvement on what’s currently available, and with more recordings will become more accurate over time.
However, we still need more participants to donate recordings to help develop this technology more quickly and test the results. We want to include as many non-standard voices as possible so please get in touch if you or people you support would like to get involved. We can offer equipment on loan, technical support, gift cards of up to £100 for participants and funding for organisations and individuals supporting someone to take part. If you or your organisation would like to be involved in this exciting development work, please see our web pages or contact our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk for more information.
Feedback from users
As well as their work on continuous recognition, Voiceitt continue to use feedback from our participants to improve their app. Recent additions include: a button to flag misrecognitions, helping to improve accuracy; the option to repeat spoken output; and more options to use Bluetooth accessories in combination with the internal mic and speaker, to support the use of Voiceitt ‘out and about’ or in noisy environments. All of these features have been requested by users and it’s great to see them now available!
Posted: October 2022
Geena’s Nuvoic Blog
Check out this blog from our Project Technologist, Geena, about her work on the Nuvoic Project: How can we make speech recognition technology work for everyone, including those with the most significant speech impairments? Many thanks to Geena and to the Jisc Accessibility, Assistive Technology and Inclusive Practice Team for inviting us to contribute.
Geena offers remote support to lots of our participants!
Posted: September 2022
Nuvoic at Communication Matters
Geena and Liz from the Karten Network took the Nuvoic Project on the road to the Communication Matters conference in Leeds in early September. They had lots of visitors asking about the project, and the photos and video clips of our participants really helped to show off everybody’s fantastic work and encourage new participants to join, so thanks to everyone involved for giving them so much to talk about! 
Posted: September 2022
BBC interview with Voiceitt
Voiceitt co-founder Sara Smolley and Ensemble participant Claire Malone talk to BBC Digital Planet about their work on accessible speech recognition: Digital Planet – Is disability tech delivering? – BBC Sounds (starts at 2:00)
Posted: August 2022
Haroon’s Nuvoic blog
One of our participants, Haroon Sahir, wrote the following piece about his experience of the project, testing the Voiceitt app and donating speech recordings through Voiceitt Ensemble:
It was just about the end of Lockdown when my main carer Leanne came back from her Covid-19 break. Before this I was just having three hours care a week during the ‘dark days of London Lockdown.’ When Leanne returned we were having telephone conversations with staff from the St Joseph’s centre in Hendon, London. We were trying to figure out on how to install Microsoft Teams onto my decade-old adapted I.T. equipment because nearly everyone was doing Zoom calls on their computers, mobiles or iPads and I wasn’t able to do this during lockdowns!’ Staff asked, after they noticed I was having speech impairment problems over the telephone, if I would be interested in taking part in a speech project. I said ‘yes’ and this led to the introduction to Geena, a technologist on the project, via e-mail.
We carried on by using the trusted and my best form of communication, which is email! There were lots of email exchanges between Geena from the Karten Network, St Joseph’s and me before I first met Geena with support from Leanne, travelling by London public bus to the St Joseph centre. That was start of the Voiceitt project for me. We did Zoom calls using Leanne’s mobile, using iPads to do my voice recordings, and Leanne videoed me using my speech recordings on the iPad in the gym and at the centre. During Geena’s home visits we set up my computer with Zoom and a microphone and she interviewed me and videoed me doing the Voiceitt recordings on my computer. Geena is coming again to try to set up our old 37″ TV in my bedroom, so I don’t have to use the awkward old Toshiba television remote control!
The most valuable and interesting thing about working on the Voiceitt project I did some 1729 Voiceitt recordings for Voiceitt Ensemble. When recording on Ensemble I felt I was working on my fourth unofficial internet job and more importantly in my opinion I was doing speech therapy independently without the help from a human speech therapist. In the future Voiceitt could be used as a science fiction version to speech therapy?
The interesting or funny thing was when I was doing the Voiceitt recordings at several night times my 77 year old mother came from her bedroom into my bedroom to see why I was talking to myself! Eventually Voiceitt Ensemble said “It has run out of sentences to record in this dataset”! I was the first person to complete all the phrases. I missed doing the recordings and hearing my speech back through the speaker/microphone which was one of the gadgets provided by the Voiceitt project and ordered by Geena via the internet!
*After this was written, the team released new sentences and Haroon has been busy recording again! You can also check out Haroon’s sports writing on Facebook. If you want to support inclusive speech recognition by donating non-standard speech recordings with Voiceitt Ensemble, please email Liz at liz@karten-network.org.uk.
Posted: June 2022
Baking with Voiceitt
One of our participants, Trisha from Northern Ireland, has been trying out the Smart Home functions in Voiceitt to help with baking cupcakes! She used Voiceitt commands to turn the mixer on and off via a Smart Plug, and to set a timer in Alexa for when the cakes would be ready. Trisha was one of our first participants, joining us through the Cedar Foundation to test and give feedback on the Voiceitt app. She’s now also donating speech samples through Voiceitt Ensemble. Thanks Trisha for all your amazing work so far! Check out her video:
‘Baking with Voiceitt’ video text description
The video starts by showing a young woman, Trisha, standing in a kitchen cracking eggs into a jug. She tips the eggs, some oil and some cake mix into a mixing bowl. She then uses the Voiceitt speech recognition app on her phone to say ‘Alexa, mixer on’. The app turns the mixer on using a smart plug, and later she says ‘Alexa, mixer off’ to turn it off. We see Patricia measuring the cake mix into cupcake cases then pass the tray to her support worker who puts them in the oven to cook. Trisha sets a timer by saying ‘Alexa set a 10 minute timer’ to the Voiceitt app on her phone. When they’re out of the oven, she tests them with a cocktail stick and smiles because they’re ready. When they’re cool she adds icing and decorates them with coloured sweets. She makes letters on each cupcake then arranges them in front of her to spell ‘Voiceitt’, says ‘Voiceitt’ and smiles.
Posted: June 2022
Nuvoic project – Spring 2022 update
Since our last update we’ve continued recruiting and supporting people with atypical speech to test and give feedback on the Voiceitt speech recognition app, and to donate speech samples to help improve the underlying technology. The app is designed to support communication and Smart Home control for people who have atypical speech, with details available on our project website.
Voiceitt at The Maples smart bungalow
In February, the Karten Nuvoic Project team visited The Maples smart bungalow at Portland College near Mansfield, to help make voice controls for their new Smart Home installation accessible for people with atypical speech, through the Voiceitt app. The team at Portland College were already supporting learners to try out a whole range of new equipment via Alexa, including some who use voice output communication aids (see their article in January’s newsletter for details). Using Voiceitt’s speech recognition app, the Nuvoic team made these commands accessible for people who want to use their own voice but who find that Alexa doesn’t understand their speech.
We setup Voiceitt commands to control lights and blinds in every room, to set the heating and view cameras at the front and back doors, and even show what’s in the fridge! With Voiceitt, users can choose the words they want to use and train the app to recognise their unique pronunciation. The Portland team have setup routines in Alexa to carry out several actions with a single command, which we replicated with Voiceitt. For example, ‘Good morning’ will open the blinds and turn on the lights throughout the bungalow, while ‘Good night’ does the reverse. ‘Let’s chill out’ closes the blinds and sets the lights low in the chill out room, activates a bubble tube via a smart plug and plays relaxing music. We also setup commands to control the Robovac (robot vacuum cleaner), and basic commands for the TVs using voice control through Voiceitt.
Sarah Field is a Learning Support worker at Portland College, and a participant in the Nuvoic Project. Sarah trained Voiceitt to recognise how she says each of these commands and demonstrates them in the following video.
It was a great opportunity to gain experience of using Voiceitt with a fantastic range of Smart Home equipment, which we hope to share with other participants and organisations – please email liz@karten-network.org.uk if you would like more information. Huge thanks to Sarah and the team at Portland College for allowing us to visit and for all your help while we were there!
Ensemble
In the latest phase of our project, we’re asking people with atypical speech to record and donate phrases through the Ensemble website, to help Voiceitt improve the way their speech recognition technology works. Thanks to everyone who’s enrolled so far, through Caritas St Joseph’s, Cedar Foundation, Enable Ireland, The Grange, Homefield College, Leonard Cheshire, Leuchie House and several individual participants too. Between them, they’ve donated over 3,500 recordings so far – a brilliant start!
We’re keen to include as many non-standard voices as possible so please get in touch if you or people you support want to add theirs to the Ensemble! We can offer equipment on loan, technical support, gift cards of up to £100 for participants and funding for organisations supporting someone to take part.
If you or your organisation would like to be involved in this exciting development work, please see our web pages or contact our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk for more information.
Other Updates
In March one of our participants, Daniel Burgess, presented his work on the Nuvoic Project to students at Oakwood Academy in Manchester. Daniel volunteers with Leonard Cheshire as a befriender at their Hill House service in Sandbach, and delivers Zoom karaoke and quizzes to residents. As well as testing Voiceitt and donating voice samples through Voiceitt Ensemble, Daniel also supports one of the residents at Hill House to take part in the project – thanks Dan for your amazing contribution!
Our Project Technologist, Geena Vabulas, has also recently presented our work with Voiceitt to over 100 Assistive Technology professionals working in HE and FE at the Jisc ‘Focus on the Future’ event. This generated a lot of interest and several new enquiries from organisations wanting to get involved – fantastic job Geena!
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, or someone you know may be interested in taking part in testing the Voiceitt app and/or donating speech samples. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: May 2022
Voiceitt at FitzRoy
One of our participants, Louise, supported by FitzRoy in Sussex, has been using Voiceitt to control her TV more independently ? Check out their article for details…
https://www.fitzroy.org/voices/assistive-technology-means-more-independence-for-louise/
Posted: April 2022
Visit to The Maples
In February 2022, the Karten project team visited The Maples bungalow at Portland College near Mansfield to setup and test Voiceitt commands to control their fantastic new Smart Home equipment, recently installed with funding from the Ian Karten Charitable Trust. We were able to use Voiceitt to control lights and blinds in every room, to set the heating and view cameras at the front and back doors, and even to show what’s in the fridge! The Portland team have setup routines in Alexa to carry out several actions with a single command. For example, ‘Good morning’ will open the blinds and turn on the lights throughout the bungalow, while ‘Good night’ does the reverse. ‘Let’s chill out’ closes the blinds and sets the lights low in the chill out room, activates a bubble tube via a smart plug and plays some relaxing music. You can also control the Robovac (robot vacuum cleaner) and give basic commands for the TVs using voice control, and we were able to replicate all of these through Voiceitt.
Sarah Field is a Learning Support worker at Portland College, and a participant in the Nuvoic Project. Sarah trained Voiceitt to recognise how she says each of these commands, and in the following video you can see her testing them out.
Through the visit, we were able to get experience using Voiceitt with a fantastic range of Smart Home equipment, which we hope to share with other participants and organisations – please email liz@karten-network.org.uk for more information.
Huge thanks to Sarah and the team at Portland College, for inviting us to visit and for all your help while we were there!
Posted: March 2022
Nuvoic project – New Year 2022 update
The New Year brings some exciting progress as we move into the second half of the Nuvoic Project! As well as participants’ ongoing work to test and give feedback on the Voiceitt speech recognition app, designed to support communication and Smart Home control for people who have atypical speech, we’re now moving into a new phase: voice sampling through Voiceitt Ensemble.
Ensemble
Voiceitt aim to improve the way their app works by collecting more speech samples from people with atypical speech. Currently, users have to teach the app to recognise each phrase or Smart Home command they want to use. In the future, Voiceitt want to offer ‘continuous recognition’, where the app would be able to recognise users’ speech without having to train every phrase in advance. To do this, they need lots more examples of non-standard speech and so we’re looking for volunteers to donate voice samples.
Participants would use Voiceitt’s Ensemble website to work through packs of phrases, making a recording for each one. The project team will support participants to register and work through their first recording session. After that they can carry on independently or with support from the project team or local teams as needed.
We’re offering gift cards of up to £100 to thank participants for their contribution, and we can also offer equipment or reimbursement of staff time to organisations supporting someone to take part. We already have our first few participants enrolled! If you or your organisation would like to be involved in this exciting development work, please contact our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk for more information.
Other Updates
Since our last update we’ve published our fantastic new project video, featuring participants from Enable Ireland, The Grange, Linkage College, Leonard Cheshire and Portland College demonstrating the different ways they’ve chosen to use the Voiceitt app. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed – it gives a great flavour of the project and we hope you’ll like it as much as we do!
Work on testing and feedback continues. We’ve recently welcomed new participants from Leonard Cheshire, New Bridge and St Joseph’s, while others have now come to the end of their testing and contributed valuable feedback to the development team. Huge thanks go to Beaumont College, Cedar Foundation, Enable Ireland, The Grange, Homefield College, National Star and SeeAbility who have all supported participants to complete their testing. We hope to continue working with you on Ensemble!
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, or someone you know may be interested in taking part in testing or donating speech samples through Ensemble. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: January 2022
Check out our new project video!
Some of our fantastic participants show how they’ve been using Voiceitt’s app to communicate or control smart home technology like lights, blinds and TVs, ask Alexa about the weather or play music or the radio, using their own voices. Thanks to everyone who contributed including participants and support teams from The Grange, Hill House Care Home, Linkage College and Portland College, the team at Voiceitt and film-maker Misha Pletinsky.
Posted: November 2021
Nuvoic Project – Autumn 21 update
Now almost 18 months into the Nuvoic Project we’re starting to see some great outcomes, both in terms of participants using the Voiceitt app to do more things more independently, and also some new developments in the user interface and app performance, in response to participants’ feedback.
The project is led by developers Voiceitt and aims to improve access to voice recognition technologies for people who have dysarthric speech. The Karten Network team leads on user testing, supporting people with non-standard speech to try the app for support with communication or Smart Home control, and give feedback on what works well and what could be improved.
Updates
We now have over 60 participants enrolled in the project, and we’re delighted to welcome new participants from Leonard Cheshire, Leuchie House in Scotland and Linkage College who join those already involved from Beaumont College, Caritas St. Joseph’s, Cedar Foundation, Enable Ireland, FitzRoy, The Grange Centre, Homefield College, National Star, New Bridge Horizons, The Oaks College, Portland College, SeeAbility, St John’s College and Young Epilepsy.
As Covid-19 restrictions have eased, more participants have been using Voiceitt to support communication out-and-about: to socialise, order food and drink in a café or to use public transport, for example. (Our team has also been able to get out and visit participants in person, which has been great!) We also have…Continue reading about the Nuvoic Project
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, or someone you know may be interested in taking part in testing and/or voice sampling. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: October 2021
Voiceitt features on Amazon’s blog
See Amazon’s article on Voiceitt, included in their Day One blog, describing how Voiceitt helps users who have non-standard speech to communicate and control Smart Home technology via Alexa.
Posted: August 2021
Voiceitt launches on AppStore
Voiceitt is now available from the AppStore! Older versions installed using TestFlight will no longer update and will eventually stop working, but users can keep using Voiceitt with all their existing phrases and commands by downloading the latest version of Voiceitt from the AppStore to their iPad or iPhone. Voiceitt have also added new game-style features so users can earn points and achievements when they use Voiceitt for something new. We look forward to hearing what our participants think of the new features!
Posted: July 2021
Voiceitt featured in Forbes magazine
Forbes magazine has published an article on user testing of Voiceitt through the Nuvoic project: Voiceitt App For Atypical Speech — A Triumph In Disability Co-Design, by UK journalist Gus Alexiou. Gus writes about diversity, equity, inclusion and issues affecting people living with physical disabilities.
Posted: June 2021
Nuvoic project – Summer 21 update
May marked the start of our second year working on the Nuvoic Project, our collaboration with developer Voiceitt, which aims to improve access to voice recognition technologies for people who have dysarthric speech. Voiceitt’s app supports people who want to communicate or control Smart Home technologies using their own voice, but who are often misunderstood by unfamiliar people or mainstream speech recognition. The Karten Network is leading on user involvement and testing in the UK and Ireland.
Updates
In April we were delighted to welcome our newest Technologist, Geena Vabulas, to the Nuvoic Project Team. Geena joins us part-time, bringing fantastic experience from her role as Policy Manager for Assistive Technology at Policy Connect, as well as previous experience in qualitative research and provision of support and training in assistive technology. Welcome Geena!
We’ve continued to work with Karten Centres and other organisations to recruit participants, and now have 46 people enrolled! Since our last update we’re pleased to welcome new participants from Caritas St. Joseph’s, Enable Ireland, FitzRoy, Oakley College and Portland College, as well as three new individuals who’ve joined us directly. They join those already involved individually or through Beaumont College, Cedar Foundation, The Grange Centre, Homefield College, Leonard Cheshire, National Star, New Bridge Horizons, SeeAbility, St John’s College and Young Epilepsy.
Testing is going well. We ask participants to choose useful phrases and smart home commands, train the app to recognise their spoken prompts and practise using them, then tell us what they think, including any problems or ideas for improvement. The Alexa and other Smart Home controls are really popular, especially to play music or radio. All users can…Continue reading about the Nuvoic Project
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, your organisation or someone you know may be interested in taking part, or if you’d like more information. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: June 2021
Nuvoic participants using Voiceitt
Some of our participants show the different ways they’ve been using Voiceitt through the Nuvoic project.
Ashley, Bev and Mark use Voiceitt to introduce themselves, Sarah asks Alexa about the weather and Anthony changes the colour of his LED lights from red to green. Ashley asks Alexa to play Magic radio, and Bev turns her bedroom lamp on. At the end, Mark shares his thoughts about Voiceitt so far, saying “I like it because it helps me to communicate”.
Posted: June 2021
Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day
To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day in May and highlight the fun side of accessibility, Voiceitt posted a video of Nuvoic participant Mark using Voiceitt to ask Alexa to tell a joke
Posted: May 2021
Nuvoic project – Spring 2021 update
Article featured in the Karten Network March 2021 Newsletter
Work continues this year on the Nuvoic Project, our collaboration with specialist app developer Voiceitt which aims to improve access to voice recognition technologies for people who have speech difficulties. Voiceitt’s app supports people who want to communicate or control Smart Home technologies using their own voice, but who have difficulty being understood. The Karten Network is leading on user involvement and testing in the UK.
Updates
We’re delighted to welcome our new Project Technologist, Sean Connolly, to the Nuvoic Project Team! Sean joins us on secondment from his previous role as Training Officer for Cedar Foundation’s Inclusion Works service, bringing his experience of supporting and advising individuals and organisations on the use of assistive technology, as well as a strong interest in smart home technologies. Welcome Sean!
Since our last newsletter, we’ve continued to work with Karten Centres and other partner organisations to recruit people with non-standard speech to test the Voiceitt app, and we’re delighted to welcome participants from FitzRoy, New Bridge Horizons, SeeAbility and St John’s College, as well as others who’ve contacted us directly. They join those already involved individually or through Beaumont College, Cedar Foundation, Enable Ireland, Leonard Cheshire, Homefield College, National Star, The Grange Centre and Young Epilepsy.
We now have participants using Voiceitt to access audiobooks and music, control lights and TVs as well as to support their communication. We’re getting lots of useful feedback about the app, and Voiceitt have recently implemented switch access and predictive text in response to testers’ comments. They’re currently working to support voice and video calls, including Alexa’s Drop-in feature, which we expect to be popular among our testers.
Participants at Hill House (Leonard Cheshire) and The Grange have also contributed video clips where they demonstrate the app and talk about how they use it. These will be combined and published later in the year – watch this space!
Thanks to all our participants and partner organisations for your contribution so far!
Get involved!
We’re still recruiting participants to test the Voiceitt app, especially the new Smart Home features, giving integrated control of an Amazon Echo smart speaker. We’re also looking to recruit people with impaired speech who are willing to donate voice recordings to help develop Voiceitt’s technology.
We’re keen to work with new partner organisations who support people with impaired speech, and we have funding available to reimburse organisations for time spent supporting the project. We can also work directly with individuals, family members and carers to support participation, and we offer vouchers, as well as free use of Voiceitt during participation and for six months afterwards, to thank participants for their contribution. Please see our project web pages for details of what’s involved.
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, your organisation or someone you know may be interested in taking part, or if you’d like more information. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: March 2021
Sarah’s views on Voiceitt
Sarah describes how she’s been using Voiceitt through the Nuvoic project
Posted: March 2021
Voiceitt receive a ‘Best of Innovation’ award
Congratulations to Voiceitt on their ‘Best of Innovation’ award from the Consumer Electronics Show. Read more about the Innovation Awards at CES 2021
Posted: January 2021
Nuvoic project – January 2021 update
Article featured in the Karten Network January 2021 Newsletter
The Karten Network has continued working on the Nuvoic Project our collaboration with specialist app developer Voiceitt, aiming to improve access to speech recognition technology for people who have speech difficulties. Voiceitt’s app supports people who want to communicate using their own voice but have difficulty being understood by unfamiliar people, or who want to use their voice for smart home control but can’t access mainstream technologies. The Karten Network is leading on user involvement and testing in the UK.
Updates
Since our last newsletter, we’ve been working with several of our partner organisations to recruit individuals to take part in the project, and we’re delighted that we now have participants from Beaumont College in Lancaster, Cedar Foundation in Northern Ireland, Enable Ireland, Hill House care home in Sandbach (Leonard Cheshire), Homefield College in Leicestershire, National Star in Cheltenham, The Grange Centre and Young Epilepsy in Surrey, as well as some individuals who’ve contacted us directly. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all of our participants and partner organisations for your contribution so far, especially in such challenging circumstances!
In December, Voiceitt announced their collaboration with Amazon to make Alexa accessible for users with impaired speech, and in January were awarded a ‘Best of Innovation’ award in the Accessibility category by the Consumer Technology Association. Congratulations Voiceitt!
We’ve also recently published our new Nuvoic project web pages, check these out for information and updates about the project.
Get involved!
We’re still recruiting participants to test the Voiceitt app, especially the new Smart Home mode which gives integrated control of an Amazon Echo smart speaker. We’re also looking to recruit people with impaired speech who are willing to donate voice recordings to help develop Voiceitt’s technology.
We’re keen to work with new partner organisations who support people with impaired speech, and we have funding available to reimburse organisations for time spent supporting the project. We can also work directly with individuals, family members and carers to support participation, and we offer vouchers, as well as free use of Voiceitt during participation and for six months afterwards, to thank participants for their contribution. Please see our project web pages for details of what’s involved.
Get in touch!
We would love to hear from you if you, your organisation or someone you know may be interested in taking part, or if you’d like more information. Please email our project co-ordinator: liz@karten-network.org.uk, or you can find more information and get in touch via our project web pages.
Posted: January 2021
Working with Amazon
Voiceitt have now announced that they will be working with Amazon to make Alexa accessible for people with non-standard speech. As well as helping users talk to people who may not understand their speech, Voiceitt can now help users ask Alexa about the news or weather; play music, audiobooks or podcasts; control lights, plugs, TVs and other smart home devices!
Posted: December 2020
First participants enrolled
A very warm welcome to our first participants in the Nuvoic project from The Grange at Bookham! They’ll be testing the Voiceitt app and giving us some feedback on what works well and what can be improved, supported by the fantastic Assistive Technology team there!
Posted: October 2020