Product Owner & Other Roles

Communicator 5 is a full function assistive communication suite which allows disabled people to speak, control their computers, and interact with others through an expanding suite of digital tools. I joined the development team as their Scrum Master while the Bergen, Norway, team was transitioning from waterfall development to agile software development. My first task with communicator was to run the project overhauling the internal software development standards and practices. Within a year the project was able to double the development throughput while reducing the number of released bugs. After this transitional period I took over the software development project as the Product Owner of Communicator 5. Because we are a small development team I wear many hats and roles other than just Product Owner. I manage the project translation in Passolo, I make icons, sketch out UX workflows, and perform user testing. In order to support users with very unique access requirements every interactive screen in Communicator is completely customizable though it comes shipped with example versions of all major available features, and for the last 2 years I have  created all of this example content.

UX Challenges with Complex Input Methods

Communicator 5 supports many different input methods that standard software packages never have to consider. While the interface is primarily targeted at eye-tracking users it also supports switch scanning, head mouse, joystick, and augmented touch. Each of these input methods offers it's own unique challenges, however the primary design constraint faced by communicator is the large button size caused by the inaccuracy of many of these methods. The button size requirement requires us to reduce the amount of information, complexity, and options available for the user, similar to the transition many traditional software programs faced when they first moved to the world of mobile touch based phone apps. Since swiping is not a usable concept with these input types we have opted to hide our complexity through pop-out/drop-down menus wherever necessary, though this solution is far from ideal as each selection action can take as much as 1.2 seconds depending on the user's input capabilities.

Software in a Medical Market

At it's core the assistive technology market is a market for medical devices. The majority of the sales of Communicator are as part of a bundle with specialized medical hardware that supports the user's unique input requirements. These devices are typically prescribed by medical professionals and paid for by medical insurance, though some small headway has been made in direct sales recently. This means that Communicator's software projects and release plans are closely tied to our hardware projects, with supporting hardware changes always being the highest development priority. Being tied to hardware, with the long warranty and support commitment required for medical devices, also leads to a long development horizon for our software titles. Where some companies can drop software in favor of a new redesigned version every few years, there is a real cost in our market to expecting users, doctors, therapists, and teachers to regularly abandon old software and learn a new system.

More than Communication

The software may be called "Communicator" but it does so much more than than give people a voice, it helps connect those people to the world. While there are full mouse & keyboard replacements available for people using alternative input methods that allow them to use the standard suite of desktop applications you are used to, many of these require a degree of precision and sustained concentration that exclude large sections of our user base. Instead these users rely on our large button sizes and simplified interfaces to access email, text messaging, TV remotes, phone calling, and other digital services. Historically we have created a number of interfaces using publicly available API to offer features such as Skype and Facebook, but recently companies have been restricting access or entirely removing the support for these features. To continue helping our users access these important aspects of modern life we have increasingly relied on creating onscreen overlays which control the native application via windows commands and keyboard shortcuts.