Open-sourced Note-Taking Tool for Dyslexic Students
During my senior year of college, I was fortunate to lead a team of developers to build an open-sourced note taking tool for dyslexic students called “WriteFree.” As many as 43.5 million Americans may have dyslexia, and for them adjusting to the virtual world is tough: text online in a document or website is not as easily customizable and digestible as writing.
Fortunately, WriteFree allows a platform for developers to contribute to providing a better method for dyslexic students to read and organize notes. Below is an ongoing list of features that developers have built overtime.
Word Spacing
Our #1 feature that is available in all common note taking applications such as Evernote and Google Docs, but is highlighted in WriteFree is word spacing. Many dyslexic students find it difficult to follow passages with dense sentences due to word spacing that feels as if words are clumped together. For example: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog vs. The___quick__brown___fox___jumps___over___the___lazy___dog. With WriteFree, each sentence can have a unique word spacing, so convert use it to your advantage for all sentences or just the ones that are hard to follow.
Text to Speech
A given for all note taking applications whether you are dyslexic or not. Text to Speech allows us to have another channel for comprehension. Sometimes, we note take during lectures without understand what we wrote. In fact, even playing your notes in the background as your prepare for the day or exam can help retain information
Custom Note Colors
Our primary colors include: #FCF8DA, #FCDFD7, #E0EBF4, #F0E5EB, and #D4ECDC. As we continue research, we add more common colors that display in the background of notes. Some colors bring out the text, others may make the text even harder to read, so please experiment with what works for you.
Bue Dots
One study habit that the International Dyslexia Association recommends is “Using the small blue dots at each end of the highlighted word, enlarge the highlighting so that all of the text on the page you want to have read is highlighted.” This mitigates the complex words or group of words that can be faced when note taking. It goes well with Hyphenation
Hyphenation
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” With dyslexia, words similar to this is a nightmare: they feel impossible to understand and read fluently. With hyphenation enabled, WriteFree allows users to split words into syllabus to allow for easy reading and following.
If you are passionate about this, please contribute to the project here
