We will talk about our actions below in, or close to, the order they happened. Often the same action served several goals. We changed the name of the project during this time, but will only use the name "The Open Voice Factory" below.

Goal: Making personal information safe

Action: So that we could write training information and so that the people we want to help could try the Factory, we had to make a system that allowed people to easily get to the voices they had made, while also allowing them to keep personal information safe from others.

We used an idea that the company Dropbox uses, so that each voice system has a hidden URL, that only the person who made it can give to people. Now people can use their own systems easily, without worrying that other people will work out where their voice system is and watch them.

Result: The people trying the Factory really liked the approach: the people we work with care a lot more about how easy something is to use rather than keeping personal information safe.

Figure 1: Part of our work with Southampton University

Goal: Making the Factory better and getting researchers to use it.

Action: If The Open Voice Factory can be the 'normal' thing that AAC researchers use, then it will have a much longer life, and many more people (who have more money) will keep making it better and better.

This means researchers can both help us find people to help, and, in future, give us money we can use to make the Factory better. With this in mind we have been working with Southampton University to make the Factory into the right AAC engine for their work: an Arabic Language AAC system.

Result: the Arabic language has lots of special cases that make it much harder to build an AAC system. This work is very big and it has been a very good way to see how ready The Open Voice Factory is for people to use. The researchers really stretched the system and we have had to add many extra pieces of work and fix lots of tiny things we found that were wrong with the system. Because we had these people helping us we were able to show a working 'Beta' of the Factory much earlier than we expected. Also, many more AAC researchers know about the Factory, and what it can do, now and there is much more chance they will use it in their own work. When they do, it will make it more easy to get other people to try the Factory.

Goal: The Open Voice Factory works well with other AAC systems

Action: we are working hard to making sure that the Open Voice Factory works well with other AAC systems. If the Open Voice Factory can read and write in the language that other AAC systems do then there is more chance that it will become part of a larger Toolchain. If it is part of a larger Toolchain, then more people will want to make it work better.

Result: this has been a hard goal. We have several people who are working on this, but it is yet to work.

Figure 2: The Open Voice Factory at International Society of AAC conference

Goals: Tell AAC experts about the Factory, find the best names for the Factory, find out what other people are working on, get in touch with people who might be willing to help us for free.

Action: to talk to people about the different ways AAC is needed all over the world we travelled to Toronto to show our work at the International Society of AAC conference, which happens every two years. We spoke to at least 127 people and showed the Factory working a little over 40 times to important people at the conference.

To find the best name for the Factory we asked people who came to our stand to look at a short set of names and pick the one they liked most. We also wrote down the things like liked or didn't like about names for AAC systems in general.

Results: a lot of people have got in touch after we spoke to them at the conference and many of the people we met are trying out the Factory for us and telling us the things they'd like to change, there are several who have asked to make the Factory in their own Language. Several of the 'Makers' that we set up the gathering with have begun to make their own changes within The Open Voice Factory.

Goal: registration of the Factory as a medical system

We’ve are working with the Emergo Group, who specialise in medical system registration, to take us thought the registration steps.

Result: this has been slow, and we had hoped to have done this in time to show a live ready-for-everyone, Factory at the conference above. Waiting for this Goal is our biggest problem and has forced us to change several other goals and their timings.

Figure 3: At the Open Voice Factory's 'Beta' launch

Goal: Let AAC experts try out The Open Voice Factory

Action: although we are waiting for our medical system result, we were able to launch The Open Voice Factory to a standing ovation at Communication Matters, the UK AAC conference.

Result: many more people have got in touch to try out the Factory, help give us information about how the feel about it, and help us with making it better.