Sono Flex 

Tobii has a long history supplying dedicated communication devices to those who are unable to communicate verbally. They have also moved into the eye tracking market with their iTobii device.

Tobii, like other communication device manufacturers are being affected by the emergence of tablet devices such as the iPad and Android market and their use as a communication device. To help counter this, they have developed their own communication App to help resolve the inevitable slump in sales for their dedicated communication devices.

The user interface

This can be broken down into 2 areas; who can access this App and how you access this App.

Let's tackle the first area first. If you can't access the App because of your disability, then I don't want to waste your time reading the rest of this review. The following people turn off - switch users, people with poor gross or fine motor skills! 

Switches aren't supported (strange for an established communication device company). The only way to access Sono Flex is by direct touch. Needless to say, if or as soon as this alters, then we will let you all know.

For those with poor fine or gross motor skills, the fixed 5 by 7 grid makes the cells that you need to press around 2.75cm square. If you can target this size of area, then great, if not, oh dear, it aint gonna work for you. Sono Flex is also available on iPhone and iPod touch with the cells being even smaller. To get around the issue of the fixed grid size (collection of cells), Sono Flex uses the swipe feature to page through. This means that if you touch the screen with anything but a straight point (you skid your finger onto the screen) then you end up in swipe mode and you will have to try again. Also, if you struggle to release your finger from the screen before 1 second, you will end up constantly trying to go into edit mode. If this is an issue for you, have a look at Proloquo2Go, as this has features to help combat this problem.

There is also no setting for padding (spacing) between the cells either, that may help a section of people.

For those with moderate to complex learning difficulties, the contextual layout may well be too much to understand (this isn't a 'deal-breaker' necessarily so please don't turn off if this is you. I will cover the contextual layout next). 

Now that we've diverted a certain percentage of people away who won't be able to access Sono Flex, let's get into the nitty-gritty! I should now be talking to people who have pretty good targeting skills and, oh yes, people with fairly good eyesight. Sorry, forgot that one.

For those who are still with me and therefore are likely to be able to access this App, it's pretty good.

Sono Flex supports single word communication, sentence building and a quick way of getting to phrase banks as well as direct typing and as you may've worked out, it uses grids (pages) of cells for you to select.

From the standard home screen you are presented with a handful of short words and links to grids of pronouns, verbs, describing words, short words and others (that they call Categories). Then we have 4 Context cells that run down the right hand side that can be changed by selecting the 'Select Context' button.

If you haven't used contextual grids before then it can be pretty difficult to get your head around, though for those who can, it can be quite rewarding. It is also a nightmare for me to try and describe, but I will try.

The term contextual in this context (see what I mean?) means that for many cells that you press, it will link to a page of words within the context of the cell that you selected. So the 'Beach' context will link to a page of beach-related words, such as sand, sea, towel and so on. Words can be given multiple contexts and are assigned to each context when editing or creating a word. An example of this would be the word 'towel' being available in the Beach and Bathroom context.

Now remember what I wrote above and ignore it if you like, for the Home page can be changed so that all the Contexts are displayed in 1 page, making it similar to The Grid 2.

One thing to bare in mind is that the tiers of pages are only a maximum of 2 deep. So from the home page, you can link to another page, but then you can't link to a third level, you have to stay within that page or go back to the home page. I think this just means you have to think hard about setting up the different context pages as well as the now, obvious need for the swipe and scroll interface being used.

There is also a Grammar button, located within the message window that allows you to change the tense of a word such as 'I' changing to 'me', 'my', ,mine, or 'myself' or 'drink' changing to 'drinks', .drinking', 'drank' or 'drunk' and this works with many small words. One drawback however, is that you can't add to the list of tenses even though there is plenty of space on the Grammar page to do so. For example, I wanted to be able to change 'I' to 'I'm' (I am) but it won't allow me to edit or add grammar words.

The main reasons for these reviews are to inform people in an unbiased manner, giving good and bad points and from the review people may think 'yes that's for me' or 'no it's not for me'. However, there is a trial version and I would strongly advise that people who are still reading this article to download the Lite version and have a go. It is a full working version except you can't edit any of the cells or add new context pages, but you will get a very good feel for how it works.

Editing

The editing process is fairly straight forward for some and a bit confusing for others (this means it needs some practice) there are good video tutorials on Tobii's website that can help. If not, you are always free to phone us and we will talk you through the process for free, as always.

You are able to edit existing words in the cells, edit blank cells or edit the main vocabulary. Each cell has a text label that can be different from the message outputted and can also contain a symbol from the provided Stix Symbols library (seems to be the main symbol package of choice for App developers), saved image or take a picture from the iPad/iPhone's built-in camera. As mentioned earlier, you are then asked to put the word or phrase into a context or contexts (remember the towel? If you're speed reading then you may be think 'what?' but then shame on you, you should read this article from top to bottom or I will feel offended). 

Next, you are asked if you would like to put the word or phrase into one of the categories that are available from the home page. Finally, you can select whether the word is a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun or for those who don't understand half of these words- Not applicable (I'm not admitting to anything).

Freedom of speech

Just in case there isn't a word or phrase that isn't already avaiable and maybe not used that often, a keyboard is avaiable. This is accessed from the right side of the message window and allows you to access and type letters, numbers and puctuation. There is an upper and lower case version, though only in an ABC format with no qwerty layout available (something that many Apps struggle with, partly down to the strict grid layout that many work with as they don't lend well to mimic the qwerty layout). 

There is no word prediction facility to work with the keyboard. This would've been a nice touch to help those who need help with spelling or to speed up typing.

Voices

Meet Heather, Laura, Nelly, Kenny and Ryan. Two women, one man, one girl and one boy. All of them are high quality voices (as far as synthasized voices go) and are all available within the Lite (free) version, though all sound slightly American which is fine if you are American I guess.

Conclusion

Taking away the major flaw of there being no switch access or re-sizing of cells, this App is well thought out and there are worse Apps available at the same price or more. The App looks neat and I'm yet to find any bugs in the system.

Users of context based communication devices should have a serious look at this, as long as they can physically access it.

Pros

• Context based setup can help reduce the amount of grids or pages needed and can also speed up message production.
• Has a keyboard for direct typing into the message window for those non-existing or hard to find words.
• Looks good and supports symbols, through the Sticks symbols included as well as being able to import your own imiges or import pictures directly from the built-in camera.
• Nice voices (if you're American).

Cons

• No switch support.
• No ability to change the size or number of cells which makes it difficult for many of those with impaired motor skills as well as those with poor eyesight and the swipe to scroll makes this App usable for those with pretty good motor control.
• Good value for money (in comparrison to products of similar production levels).
• Can be tricky to learn how to use the context system if you haven't used a similar system before (minor point). 
• The editing options are fairly complex, though nowhere near as bad as the PC equivalents (though it tends to be the more something does, the harder it is to set it up).
• No ability to change the speech rate.