REACH Smart Key™ Technology
(Patent Pending)
Recently announced by AHF, REACH "Smart Key™ Technology" (Smart Keys) is the latest advance in assistive technology. An "add on" option for REACH Interface Author™ (REACH), this innovative approach to on-screen keyboards will increase typing speed and accuracy for many REACH users.
Here is how it works - just load any of the REACH typing keyboards such as one of the alphabetic keyboards shown below:
Start typing the word "lucky" by selecting the letter "L". When the letter "L" is typed, not only does REACH start predicting the word you are typing (word prediction starts predicting words that begin with "L"), but Smart Keys starts predicting the next letter.
Smart Keys does this by using a unique (patent pending) method for determining which letters follow the letter "L" in the REACH dictionary(ies) you have loaded. In one option, Smart Keys then removes all letters that don't follow "L" (see below):
This simplifies the keyboard display and makes it easier to find the next letter you are looking for! It also makes it easier to "hit" the correct key because there is now a lot of empty space, so if you accidentally miss the target key, you won't type the wrong letter!
When you type the next letter ("U") in "lucky", Smart Keys again updates the keyboard to show you the letters that follow the sequence "LU":
At this point, you can continue typing "lucky", but you probably would select it from the word prediction bar instead (to save time - notice the word "lucky" already has appeared in one of the word boxes).
If you are typing a word that is not in the current REACH dictionary(ies), then you can select the "Escape" (Restore) key (lower left corner) to bring back all the keys on the keyboard. When you finish typing the novel word, you probably will want to use the quick "Add Word" option to add it to your User Dictionary.
If you want the benefits of Smart Keys but also want all the keys to stay on the keyboard all of the time, select the "Gray and Make Active" option (where unlikely keys are "grayed out" but can still be typed), the "Gray and Make Inactive" option (where unlikely keys are grayed out and cannot be typed) or the "Change Colors" option, (where the colors of unlikely keys are changed).
An example of the "Change Colors" option is shown below to show what the keyboard would look like after typing the "L" in "lucky":
You also can decide whether to show or not show the number keys, punctuation keys, or control keys!
Scanning Keyboard Advantage
Perhaps one of the greatest advantages from Smart Key Technology comes for persons using scanning keyboards. The problem with scanning keyboards always has been the amount of time wasted while waiting to get to the correct key.
When you turn on any of REACH's three scanning options, depending on the options you select, REACH only scans the likely keys or scans the likely keys first, before scanning the unlikely keys. This can result in substantial time savings!
Free demonstration software is available if you would like to try REACH with Smart Keys: