Chad Ruble shares his journey from television news to developing assistive technology solutions, motivated by personal experiences with his mother's communication difficulties. He emphasizes the importance of rapid prototyping and customization in assistive tech, highlighting various available tools such as Arduino and web-based applications. Ruble encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing, offering to provide resources like code and schematics through his blog.

1. Assistive Messaging
Chad Ruble
A part of the Hands-On Ideas series
April 17, 2013

2. About me
• Background in television
news, but was always drawn
to get "under the hood" with
Relevant image here
technology. My mom's
communication difficulties
and a dissatisfaction with the
cost and design of solutions
led me to create my own.
So, I ended up collaborating
Mom and her iPad
with her on a bunch of
different technological
solutions.

6. Arduino
Openly Disruptive

7. Kinecticate
Openly Disruptive

8. Web-based - Iconicate
Openly Disruptive

10. Email

11. Exploration in non-traditional
interfaces for messaging
Openly Disruptive

12. Some big themes
Demographics are shifting. Aging boomers and an
increase of care.
Technology is increasingly easy to create and
customize: Arduino, Processing, 3D printing, Web
2.0 (HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Libraries, 3rd
Parties),
Tinkers - assistive tech is a great place where
simple things can have a huge impact.
(Prosthetics, cups, handles).
Openly Disruptive

13. What I learned
Huge range of comfort with technology.
Rapid prototyping was a great way to get real learning.
Building Tapgram as a Web-based application made
iterations very easy. But some fuction/speed/and UI
design would benefit from native iOS and Android.
Small things might be "simple tech" can be super
effective.

14. How you can build off my work
I've posted a lot on my blog.
If you are looking for any code or schematics that aren't
there, please email me and I'm happy to provide.

15. Question and Answers