Yosemite – ‘Switch Control 1’ – Keyboard

Switch Control is a revelation best seen to be appreciated. It has a number of function, too many for a single post so we’ll look first at Keyboard. But before we do here’s a description.

With Switch Control, you can use one or more adaptive accessories¹ to enter text, interact with items on the screen, and control a Mac.
Switch Control scans a panel or the user interface until you use a switch to select an item or perform an action. Source: Apple Support

Here’s how we bring up the keyboard and a pointer to a few handy few features.

Keyboard Maestro – Automation Supercharged

Keyboard Maestro sat unused on my Mac for ages after I read an article about it. On opening it seemed like more fuss than use – a geeks time squanderer.
Then academic work with other research and writing gave me a series of frequently used apps and workflows that started to make life busy. As work pressure built, time became scarce and increasingly valuable. The truth dawned – working smarter wasn’t just a cool thought, it had become a pressing necessity.

MND/ALS – a Slow but Determined Thief

It’s easy to compartmentalise the progress of this disease into hands/no hands, speech/no speech etc. In fact the onset is progressive: the part that’s relevant to our conversations here are a slow robbing of finger, hand, then arm function. Whilst this is distressing it does at least allow us to plan, adapt and set up new tools and workflows for the dimmer end of the journey.

Text Expansion – Kill Keystrokes, Save Time

The leveraging of work done in the past gifts us time and effort saved at the keyboard. How many times do you find yourself producing repetitive runs of text? A simple example would be an email signature, another might be the standard letter, often taken care of with a template using Pages or Word. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to summon either with a simple stroke key combination based around the task?

The Eyetribe eye-tracker

The EYETRIBE
This compact and sleek eye-tracker is currently the only device with software for  the Mac. If you want one you need to join the line as this Swedish (Copenhagen) company releases them in batches. When your device has shipped you access links to the software (SDK) through your EyeTribe  account page. 

Keyboard shortcuts – enter KeyCue

It’s useful to have a starting point when looking at Assistive Technologies (AT). We will work initially using two assumptions. Let’s consider as a baseline users with limited use of their hands, certainly those with little finger dexterity remaining. They can press a key, but typing is best performed using their eye-tracker and on-screen keyboard (Optikey or Click2Speak).

I’m waiting for my eyetribe™ tracker to arrive with its associated software, so for the moment I will deal with AT software components rather than workflows. A working knowledge of various apps capabilities brings a lightbulb moment when we realise how we might use them within our unique situation.

The Mission – Access & Control

Look at inspirational individuals like Gal Sont.

Their dogmatic refusal to be cowed, to take the hand dealt them, shuffle then replay it is admirable. Gal (a developer – PC man) has fashioned an on-screen keyboard that can be controlled through an eye-tracker. What’s more he is giving it away for free. Not only has this happened in Israel, Julius Sweetland (another PC developer driven by altruism¹) is doing much the same here in the UK. Doesn’t that make you want to jump on your chair and clap?

Sitting on the edge of a wet mud-hole

Hiram Salvini has a serious case of ALS. He can’t move or talk and uses his eyes to type words into a computer, which then speaks for him. Source: Photo by Richard Gwin.

There is no escaping it, this disease is a bummer, ask Professor Steven Hawking, he’s lived with it for around 50 years. Most of us have a clue what’s around the corner just before we get there, but the news may have come out of the blue. Either way, your keyboard smokes driving Google to provide its version of a crystal-ball to paw over.  The end-game becomes apparent – this disease has the potential to leave its host with only their eye muscles working unaffected. Some end, and what a game.

The MND crowd tend to be stoics to their toenails, they plan for the worst whilst hoping for the best. That would be for a cure of course (there isn’t one – yet). Yet we are defined not by what happens to us, but how we respond to fortune, be good or ill.