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Tag: Assistive Technology

November 5, 2026 KLaSalle

Games and Toys 2026

As regular readers will know, we moved away from our

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An Microsoft teams call showing 9 callers on a tiled window within the MS Teams application.

September 22, 2026 Valerie Healy

ConnectAbility: Building Digital Inclusion Through Virtual Services and Assistive Technology

Social inclusion can be described as the process of ensuring

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a pair of dark smart glasses with small cameras at both ends of the glasses

August 12, 2026 Chris White, CEO Vision Ireland

Smart Glasses Have Mainstreamed Assistive Technology. The Backlash Is Unacceptable

Privacy concerns around smart glasses deserve serious scrutiny. But labelling

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December 1, 2025 KLaSalle

Games and Toys 2025

Every year we’ve shared a huge list of accessible games

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November 4, 2025 Juliann Bergin

Top 5 Apps for Autistic Children 2025

Supporting children with autism through technology can be a powerful

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Empowering Literacy with Text Reader Pens

October 28, 2025 Juliann Bergin

Empowering Literacy with Text Reader Pens

Text reader pens are handheld devices that scan printed text

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October 7, 2025 Mary Relihan

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a versatile way to visually organise ideas.

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October 2, 2025 Juliann Bergin

AAC Awareness Month- Discounts for 2025

October is AAC Awareness Month, a time to celebrate communication

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September 30, 2025 Alan Joyce

VoiceAttack: Control Your Computer (in part) with Your Voice

What is VoiceAttack? VoiceAttack is a program for Windows computers.

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September 2, 2025 Mary Relihan

Key2Enable, Key-X Keyboard

What is Key-X Keyboard? The Key-X keyboard is designed to

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In this video I'll briefly show how to easily build an Optikey Dynamic Keyboard using our build document and an AI assistant that can be used as an alternative interfaces for games or apps.

Descriptive Transcript
[Video starts showing the optikey on screen keyboard typing "optikey" on a blank document. It then switches to the Special Effect webpage about EyeMine]
Narrator: OptiKey is a free on screen keyboard that
people control with their eyes, head, mouse, a joystick or a touchscreen.

It can do much more than type though. The UK gaming charity Special Effect
built EyeMine from it so that people could play Minecraft with their eyes.

[The Spotify control keyboards are shown on screen here. 3 keyboards. One to launch Spotify, YouTube or VLC. One to control the apps with buttons like Next previous, play pause and a favorates keyboard.]

OptiKey also has dynamic keyboards. They are small text files that describe
keyboards, what each key says and what it does, such as pressing a key or opening a programme.

It's a similar idea to the grids in software like the Grid 3 or Communicator.

In my experience, dynamic keyboards are underused because there's no editor with buttons and menus.

You have to write the files yourself. That's where an AI assistant comes in.

[Claude AI chat interface, prompt added and edited. Build document uploaded. Screenshot of game controls uploaded]

We wrote a build document and instructions with working examples. I'll upload it, then add a short message,
the app I want to control, the functions I want and how the person will use it, and a screenshot of the game controls in
this case.

Although I could just write them down. Or sometimes you could even just ask the AI to find out the keyboard shortcuts for you.

A few moments later I have a first draft, a layout, the keyboard files, and the setup steps.

I saved the files in a folder. There's an extra step here that you won't need to do because the new prompt asks
the AI to give you the file to directly download.

If you're an optic key user, put the file in your dynamic keyboards folder or if you just want to use this
optickey for this purpose, as we show here in the console, you can set Optikey to look for this keyboard file on opening so we can
restart optiKey.

And here's our new dynamic keyboard.

[Keyboard docked at the bottom of the screen controling the supermario game]

It's a bit hit and miss for these browser based games, but for well designed and implemented games and apps this should work pretty solidly.

Optikey Dynamic keyboards: Accessible alternative access for apps and games

Musician Cillian McSweeney gives us a brief history of his life as a musician who uses Assistive Technology. While he tells his story we see a montage of clips of him playing music live and on TV. We see him using a sound beam, switches and eye gaze. and playing with various bands and musicians in different venues. The second half is a screen recording where he shows a free program that he uses called Eye Play Chords. At the end of the video there's a QR code linking to My Breath My Music where the software can be downloaded.

Eye Play Chords

Smart Support AT for Alzheimer's Management

How to set up an Action Block on Android to make WhatsApp calls

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AT HIVE
CALL Scotland
David Banes Access Services
Enable Ireland: Additional Training and Support Resources
Enable Ireland: eLearning Courses
Eventbrite National Assistive Technology Training Service, Enable Irelan d
Freedom Tech
GPII Unified Listings

ATandMe Eventbrite

ATandMe YouTube

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