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Ron Hu, President / Designer, Afforda Speech
Tags:Assistive Technology, Design, Innovators, Profiles
Inquiries:
http://www.affordaspeech.com/
Description of technology
Afforda Speech builds augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and text-to-speech (TTS) systems. Consider BoardSpeaker/DECtalk, for example. It is a small, portable, icon/picture-based AAC unit, story reader and learning aide that is activated through an interactive touch screen with text labels on overlay cards. A web application will create customized picture cards to match programmed communication utterances. Picture card overlays are typically changeable by users without assistance from others.
Got involved in access technology issues through
Ron is a self-described “techno-freak” and has worked with computers and electronics since he was a kid. Until recently, he owned an assistive technology vending company registered with the Canadian government. Through that work, he had a lot of contact with manufacturers of scanners, speech synthesizers, and other technologies that helped spark his desire to get back into design himself. “I was already familiar with the market, so to speak, and when I sold that business, I really wanted to get back into electronics more… this was a very good avenue for me to be able to design and play with new ideas.”
Intrigued by
Ron is intrigued by the potential of technological systems to communicate their uses through product design itself. “I always look at everything and say, ‘Okay, if somebody didn’t know anything about the product, how would they react to this?’ I was dealing with that issue the other day with an LED light… if the person didn’t know what the meaning of this light is, what could they infer from it without any documentation? It’s like, you (as the user) build the manual as you use it in your head and hopefully that model you build coincides with the (real) manual if you printed it.”
Finding out about needs
Ron prefers to get feedback from potential users without tipping them off in any way about areas for which he’s seeking a reaction. He looks to students, teachers, and even “the average person” for product insight.
Seeing the world in new ways
Ron is remarkably reflective about the importance of avoiding having technology take center stage, even though it is the technology he is focused on and loves. He says, “The paradox is always that technology is designed by technical people - how do you overcome that - it’s almost like a disease! Technology people, in some respects, are the worst persons to design a user interface because they are so familiar with the technology that everything to them is second nature.” He does not feel there is anything inherent about his products that makes them so training independent and transparent to user needs. Rather, he says, “I think it is really a question of having a mind set and not to be carried away with the glamour of technology and showing off. Forget showing [the technology] off, make the user experience as transparent as possible.”
On design principles
Afforda Speech’s primary principle is “sort of a backwards approach.” Regarding design for obvious use, Ron says, “You can extrapolate everything you need to know from actual usage and experience of [the product].” Ron asks himself, “How can I make [a product] so that if you didn’t read the manual, a light would make sense in context of what you are doing?” Ron uses a projective process in design: “I already try to be in (users) shoes when I am designing it. I am already trying to adopt their mindset, working on it, and designing it, as opposed to an after the fact thought…”
On users
Ron sees an intimate connection between technology and users. He says, “If Aug Com is the predominant function they’re doing, then I like to see it as the extension of their voice. If it’s a learning disabled child who uses it as a learning tool, then I like to see it as a device that helps them to understand the world.” He continues, “It’s sort of second nature and I like to think that the products that we are designing, as they use them, become part of them. They are not thinking ‘I am interacting with this device, oh I am learning something from this device.’ It’s sort of an appendage of your body.”
On training and use
Ron views ‘training’ as something of a “dirty word.” Ron says, “Our technology is really totally hidden from the user. They have no idea what’s going on behind the box. They couldn’t care less. We claim that there is no user training required on our product because I show you one time and you know how to operate it. So that’s sort of been what’s missing in the solutions that other people have proposed.”
Views on the market
Ron emphasizes the core business issues that surround AT development. He begins with a market study and forecasting of the number of units of a product that can be sold, then takes into account the significant capital development costs that necessitate a market base of sufficient size. He says, “A mold alone can cost you $50,000 or more. So there are, unfortunately, some reality checks that prevent a lot of products from getting to market. With these capital expenditures, there is no way I am going to make a product that services 100 or 500 users… it’s unlikely they would pay for it.”
Success indicators - making a difference
Transparency is at the heart of Ron’s conception of success in his products as learning and communication modes. He repeats, “(Users) are not thinking, ‘Oh gee I am learning something.’ It should be such that they are learning it without realizing they are learning it. That - to me - is the effective and natural way of learning.”
On challenges, information exchange, and research
Ron’s approach to information gathering has been an individual one, without assistance from university labs or similar sources. Further, he is ambivalent about focus groups as a method of gathering information, seeing them as “contrived” and “limited.” Trade shows, and the feedback they garner, are a primary venue Afforda Speech uses for gathering information and responses.
Wants to know more about
In obtaining user feedback, Ron stresses he wants to know and figure out what features of those suggested by users will actually be functional and desirable in the market. He wants to know what users will really elect to pay for and use. He indicates that even “large sample sizes” may not reveal this.
On new horizons
Ron views speech synthesis itself as a major horizon that has reached solid quality. “I think the time has come in that it’s going to be pervasive in everything we have,” he says. “Every electronic gadget’s going to have speech synthesis in a short time because the technology has become so affordable, and talking and listening are still the most natural ways to communicate. Manufacturers are going to adopt speech technology in most devices as things move forward.”
Provocative views & quotes
“When we talked to teachers about a product, you can see their minds working - ‘What’s this going to involve? Gee, what am I going to have to learn? How am I going to teach it?’ You can see it in their faces. Any manufacturer who is selling something like this has to be very conscious of that because the more user complexity there is the less likely their equipment will be used after purchase and be adopted into the system.”
