May 20, 2021, is the tenth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). All over the world people are offering free online sessions and events about digital access and inclusion. Being able to use digital technologies helps us all and can be an essential part of one billion disabled people's lives, including those using augmentative and alternative forms of communication.
During April we have continued to update Board Builder and added the ability to use multiple writing systems as well as more symbols in charts and with Symbol Creator. We have been exploring the type of fonts that will present both Cyrillic and Logographis scripts. Quite a challenge!
March has made us think about spring and new beginnings after a difficult winter with COVID-19. We have been exploring automated text simplification with symbol support for those with cognitive impairments. It is not a new idea to want to make complex web text easier to understand, but still a challenge when you want to allow for personalisation of symbol representations!
Lets get creative this February! We have moved from creating templates to creating symbols for the templates with the launch of a much updated Board Builder and Symbol Creator thanks to the support of a Winston Churchill Action Fund. Now could be a good time to have fun making personalised symbols and images for charts and information sheets!
2020 was a year that will be remembered for a global pandemic, but in amongst all the challenges there have been amazing examples of people's kindness with support for others. This has included online resources from the AAC community, where both individuals and companies have shared knowledge and resources for free, including templates for building communication charts.