You can use all the apps that you find in the App Store just with your eye gaze, but some of them are more gaze-friendly than others. Therefore we have prepared a simple guide of what communication apps we recommend using together with Hiru and iPad.
How to find the correct settings
Use these instructions to help you quickly locate the essential settings for your app. You can click on each item in [brackets] to find more information about the specific setting.
[Name of the app] - [Recommended user profile from Irisbond]
[Snap to Item:] Highlighting of the cell.png?width=70&height=68&name=Proloquo%20(2).png)
[AutoHide:] Temporarily hidden cursor [Time:] x seconds, for how long time the cursor stays hidden when we look at one place
[Dwell time:] Time to perform a click
[Hot Corners:] Additional actions in the corners of the iPad
[AT menu:] Imitation of touch actions
[Custom Actions]: Touch actions for the caregiver
[Custom Gestures]: Personalized drawn gestures
Click on the icon of the app to explore more about it!
It is beneficial to have these actions in your AT menu for communication apps in general:
- Pause Dwell: Pause the click functionality.
- Move Menu: Ability to move the AT Menu
- Home: To leave the app and return to Home
Communication Apps Guide
Symbol based apps
Proloquo2Go - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: None
AT menu:
- Long Press: To access more vocabulary options, a long press is needed
- Disable/Enable Fallback: allows you to lock in the action selected, in case you want to repeat this action.
Custom Actions:
- Double tap: Pause/Resume Dwell
- Long Press: Disable/Enable Fallback.
Grid for iPad - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: ON Time: 0.4 s
Dwell time: 0.75 s
Hot Corners: Active bottom corners
AT Menu: To avoid having to move the AT menu around, create an empty cell in most used Gridsets where the AT menu can be placed.
*TIP*: To give the eye gaze user an easy route back to the Grid Explorer (Home Screen), edit a cell in their communicator grid for "Grid Explorer", or remove the upper left hand hot corner.
Proloquo - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: ON Time: 0.4 s
Dwell time: 0.75 s
Hot Corners: Active only bottom corners
AT Menu: To avoid having to move the AT menu around, create an empty cell in most used vocab sets where the AT menu can be placed.
Go Talk Now - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Toggle ON/OFF Snap to Item
AT Menu:
- Create a Custom gesture for a 5-second long press to access the home menu
- Add a scroll to browse through lists of symbols
TouchChat HD (with WP) - Early Stage 2 / Independent user
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Pause / Resume Dwell, optional* Open AT menu.
AT Menu: Add a Long Press action to access more vocabulary options.
⭐TIP:
- Make the AssistiveTouch Menu invisible to avoid blocking any cells on the pages. Add “Open Menu” as a Hot Corner to access it
- For eye gaze skill building, indicate the hot corner "pause" using a customized button & Symbol. Edit the cell closest to the hot corner with a symbol to encourage the user to use that hot corner (see lower right).
LAMP Words for Life - Early Stage 2 / Independent user
Snap to Item: ON 
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Pause / Resume Dwell, optional* Open AT menu.
AT Menu: Add a Long Press action to access more vocabulary options.
SimPODD - Early Stage 2 / Independent user
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Snap to Item
AT Menu: Scroll
Avaz- Early Stage 2 / Independent user
Snap to Item: ON. Begin with Snap to Item activated, but Avaz currently has some screens which Make tools available to deactivate as needed:
- Hot Corner: Tap - gives the user autonomy to remove Snap.
- Custom Action: Tap - gives the communication partner ability to quickly deactivate Snap.
AutoHide: OFF. Consider turning on case by case basis.
AT Menu: Tap, Pause
Hot Corners:
- Snap to Item - bottom right
- Pause - bottom left.
⭐TIP: For eye gaze skill building, indicate the hot corner "pause" using a customized button & Symbol. Edit the cell closest to the hot corner with a symbol to encourage the user to use that hot corner (see lower left).
CoughDrop - Early Stage 2 / Independent user
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Add Disable fallback, and Make the AssistiveTouch Menu invisible to avoid blocking any cells on the pages. Add “Open Menu” as a Hot Corner to access it
FlexSpeak - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON.webp?width=70&height=70&name=460x0w%20(1).webp)
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners:
- Pause/Resume Dwell
- Snap to Item Toggle on/off: some areas of the app do not have Snap to item access
AT Menu: Make the AssistiveTouch Menu invisible to avoid blocking any cells on the pages. Add “Open Menu” as a Hot Corner to access it
- Shortcut to open Hiru App. With the app's small icons, its good to have easy access to the calibration.
Tip: Add an assistive Keyboard like Keeble to your iPad keyboard options if you want an adapted keyboard. Since FlexSpeak uses the keyboards you have stored on your device!
Speak for Yourself - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners:
- Pause/Resume Dwell
AT Menu: Make the AssistiveTouch Menu invisible to avoid blocking any cells on the pages. Add “Open Menu” as a Hot Corner to access it
- Shortcut to open Hiru App. With the app's small icons, its good to have easy access to the calibration.
- Calibration: Calibrate with at least 5 points. 9 will give higher success rates for the large number of cells on screen.
Clicker Apps - Early Stage 2
Snap to Item: ON
AutoHide: OFF or ON, preference
Hot Corners: None
- Disable/Enable Fallback
- Long Press
Tip: To successfully use the apps with eye gaze, you must either:
- Turn Snap to item ON. Or...
- If you prefer not to use Snap to item, select "Disable Fallback", then "Long Press" to navigate through the app via eye gaze.
Text based Apps
Predictable - Independent user
Snap to Item: ON 
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Toggle ON/OFF Snap to Item
Proloquo4Text - Independent user
Snap to Item: ON 
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: None
Dialogue - Independent user
Snap to Item: ON 
AutoHide: OFF
Hot Corners: Pause / Resume Dwell, Toggle on/off Snap to Item, optional* Open AT menu.
AT Menu: Add a Long Press action to access more vocabulary options.