Customizing icons and visuals in AAC apps has long been a challenge for caregivers and therapists. In many traditional AAC systems, adding a personal touch means you (the communication partner) have to do all the heavy lifting – hunting down images online, downloading and uploading them into the app.
It’s a tedious, multi-step process that eats up time and energy. In fact, some AAC experts resort to taking screenshots of needed symbols and importing them manually across apps. All this hassle can be frustrating when you just want to quickly personalize a communication board. The philosophy of Avaz AAC is different: the app should do the hard work, not the communication partner.
What Are Media-Rich Icons?
Media-Rich Icons in Avaz AAC are a game-changer for easy customization. Avaz offers a variety of built-in options to add or change an icon’s image (or even video) right within the app, including:
– SymbolStix Library: Access over 15,000 pre-loaded SymbolStix symbols for a huge range of words and ideas. Just type a keyword to find a matching symbol.
– Web Image Search: Find pictures from the internet within Avaz via an integrated web search – no need to open a browser or download files.
– Device Camera: Instantly snap a photo using your device’s camera to create a truly personalized icon (great for family members, favorite toys, etc.).
– Photo Gallery: Upload an existing image from your device’s gallery in a couple of taps.
– Animated GIFs: Use fun, animated GIF images to bring an action or emotion to life.
– YouTube Videos: Link a YouTube video to a word, so that tapping the icon can play a short video clip in-app – perfect for visual learning or showing a favorite song.
The edit interface provides multiple media options (symbols, web search, photos, GIFs, YouTube) built right into the app. All of these sources are built into Avaz AAC itself, meaning you never have to leave the app or perform extra downloads to personalize a button. Simply choose the option you want, and Avaz the rest.
Seamless YouTube Integration
Communication partners no longer have to juggle between apps; Avaz handles video playback. The built-in YouTube search and player allows them to find and play videos safely within the app without ads or autoplay clutter. You can set a custom start time and stop time for each video, ensuring only the relevant portion plays and nothing more.
Customizable GIF Playback
Animated GIFs bring humor and emotion into communication – sometimes a moving image says it all. Want to give an emphatic “no”? Try attaching a Grumpy Cat GIF to the “No” button for extra flair. Now Avaz lets you set a loop count for GIFs – for example, play an animation twice and then have it stop instead of looping endlessly. Research shows that animated symbols can enhance comprehension for learners on the autism spectrum, but too much motion can also be overstimulating. In fact, some users prefer a GIF play only once rather than loop continuously. By stopping an animation after the set number of loops, Avaz adjusts the sensory input to the user’s comfort, preventing sensory overload before it starts.
Variable Grid Size per Folder
Avaz AAC now allows different folders to use different grid sizes to suit each context. You can keep most of the app at a higher pictures per screen grid size for a robust core vocabulary, while setting a particular folder to use fewer, larger icons for media-rich content. The app adapts to each layout automatically – when you open that special folder, the icons appear larger without affecting other pages. This flexibility keeps highly visual material accessible without disrupting your overall layout, and it spares caregivers from manually redesigning boards for different activities.
Why This Matters
Requiring many manual steps to customize AAC visuals isn’t just inconvenient – it can disrupt the communication process. Traditionally, if an AAC user needed a new word or a more relatable picture, their communication partner had to stop and go through a laborious process to import that media. Imagine having to pause a therapy session to google an image, save it, import it, and then adjust it on the device. Those minutes add up and can derail the user’s focus. Avaz’s media-rich icon feature eliminates these unnecessary steps. By providing an all-in-one solution (from symbol libraries to web and video search), Avaz saves communication partners considerable time and effort. The app handles the heavy lifting of finding and formatting the right media, making the process intuitive and quick. For caregivers and SLPs, this means less tech hassle and more time actually communicating and teaching. In short, Avaz AAC makes sure that you spend your time engaging with the learner, not managing files.
The Bigger Picture
When the app handles the hard work of customization, everyone wins. Reducing the workload on communication partners means that setting up and updating an AAC device becomes a faster, less daunting task. Parents and professionals can more readily keep the system up-to-date with the user’s evolving interests, because adding that new movie character or latest hobby is so straightforward. This leads to an AAC system that is always in tune with the communicator – which in turn encourages more consistent use and better engagement. Ultimately, Avaz AAC’s media-rich icons exemplify the principle that assistive technology should simplify life for caregivers and therapists. By letting the app do the heavy lifting, communication partners can focus on what truly matters: connecting with the AAC user and modeling language. So go ahead and explore the media-rich icon feature in Avaz AAC – you’ll find that empowering communication is easier when the app does the hard work, not you.
