Case study · 01 · Input layer
Traditional AAC apps assume the communication problem is linguistic — that users just need a library of symbols to point at. The actual failure happens earlier.
On both sides of the exchange — supporter and user — regulation fails before understanding gets a chance. The interface is already too much. The language that needs expressing is detailed and complex. Every detail matters.
I built Piktoa from the inside of that problem. As an AuDHD parent of a non-verbal child in a residential care setting, I was on both ends of the communication pair. The tools available required navigating dense symbol libraries mid-dysregulation — which is exactly when navigation capacity isn’t available.
"Like a calculator — you could do the equation in your head, but it’s cognitively expensive. Piktoa removes that cost. The understanding was always there."
The solution isn’t a better symbol library. It’s a translator. Type the schedule in natural language; Piktoa converts it into the relevant pictogram sequence — fast, low load, faithful to the original meaning on both ends.
The problem
Both the supporter building the schedule and the user receiving it hit the same wall — not a comprehension problem, but a regulation load problem. The tool was adding cost at exactly the wrong moment.
The translation
Choose a routine
Pictograms via ARASAAC · Full AI translation at picto.unhinged-lab.com