Meet Lucinda
At Smartbox, we work closely with the people who use our products, ensuring our technology meets their unique needs and continues to improve. Six years ago, Lucinda started using eye gaze technology after a brain injury affected her ability to communicate verbally. Today, she is studying for a master’s degree in sustainability at the University of Southampton, with future plans for a Ph.D. Lucinda has also been recognised as one of the UK’s 100 most influential disabled people for her groundbreaking work with SpecialEffect, a charity who develop eye gaze games. Lucinda, was one of the first eye gaze users to try out Grid Pad 13. Her feedback helped us refine some of the key features before the device launched. She uses many of the apps in Grid, including Fast Talker, our accessible apps, computer control, and environment control features. “I communicate using eye gaze and have been using Grid since 2018. Originally I used a Grid Pad 11, then I moved on to Grid Pad 12 and now I use Grid Pad 13. I use both dwell and blink to select cells using eye gaze and control Grid. When communicating I tend to use dwell as it’s less tiring. However, in computer control, I find blink faster. Blink works in a similar way to click. Dwell is more like hovering over a cell to select it.” “I use my Grid Pad from the moment I wake up, until I go to sleep. It’s a major part of my life and allows me to communicate effectively. A typical day generally has various meetings, presentation preparation, emails and university work. I also like to go outside for some fresh air.” “My first impressions of Grid Pad 13 were extremely positive. It felt like a massive leap forward compared to my current device, the Grid Pad 12. The speed of the device from startup was significantly faster, and it was ready for use with eye gaze within a couple of minutes!” “One of my favourite features is the Smart Buttons. I can customise them to suit me, helping me to use Grid Pad 13 in a fast and intuitive way. Plus, the ability to change their colour also made the device more visually attractive. For someone who requires efficiency, the Smart Buttons have opened a whole new way of navigating my eye gaze. When it comes to eye gaze, Smartbox devices are among the most versatile. As with all tech, I look forward to seeing how they continue to evolve.” What are Smart Buttons? Smart Buttons (positioned above the eye gaze camera) can be programmed to perform certain actions in Grid. For example you can set them to rest your eye gaze camera, open the positioning guide, go to Grid Explorer or navigate back. Lucinda chose to set up one Smart Button to navigate directly to computer control, which she uses most frequently to access other programs on her device. Then a second Smart button gives her instant access to Fast Talker, her communication grid set. A third takes her to the environment control settings. Learn more about Smart Buttons here. “I have loved being involved in testing Grid Pad 13 with Smartbox. As someone who requires very advanced functions, it was rewarding to help future users, particularly at this level, where even the slightest performance issues have an impact. A highlight was testing the device to the extreme to see what it could handle. Part of extensively testing a product is that there’s always a chance of problems developing – but that’s why we go through the development process. When I did find issues, Smartbox was excellent in their approach and addressed issues comprehensively.” During the development of Grid Pad 13 we worked alongside 40 AAC users and professionals. We asked them about our existing devices and what they thought could be improved to help us create our next generation Grid Pad. Interested in testing future Smartbox products? We are always looking for AAC users to try out new Smartbox features and products.
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