Kuzushi AAC

Communication aid · iOS & Android

Simple, fast conversation.

Kuzushi AAC is a communication aid for people who can type and read English but sometimes find it difficult to, or simply prefer not to, speak out loud. Press a tile and it speaks immediately. Type a line and it speaks the moment you press Enter, while the box clears so you can start the next one.

By default it runs entirely on your device. No account, no sign-up and no connection to me — Kuzushi AAC doesn’t send what you type anywhere.

  • App StoreComing soon
  • Google PlayComing soon

Kuzushi AAC isn’t published yet. It’s a personal project being readied for both stores — get in touch if you’d like to know when it lands.

The board on a first launch — sixteen tiles, the chips that rewrite them, and the openers that hold the floor while you type.

Control the beat of a conversation.

Kuzushi AAC is designed to help you have live conversations where timing is important. A lot of spoken conversations rely on quick feedback, audible reactions, and “filler words” to manage the flow of a conversation.

Unfortunately, people who rely mainly on audible speech sometimes do a poor job of listening if these cues don’t arrive when they expect. So, I built this app around the idea that stepping in at the right moment can make the difference between being heard or being ignored.

Kuzushi AAC aims to give you a wide range of conversational tools without a steep learning curve.

  • Instant phrases

    Choose from hundreds of phrases with a single swipe to play one out loud instantly.

  • Type without pausing

    Enter speaks the line and clears the box in the same instant. Lines queue up and play in order, so you can compose your next sentence while your last one is still playing.

  • Claim the floor

    Openers like Wait, Question and Um… claim the turn before you’ve typed a word — and an optional auto-filler can hesitate out loud while you write.

Holding ✅ Yes.

Sixteen tiles, hundreds of phrases

Tap on a tile to play it aloud. Press and hold, and the whole board becomes fifteen other ways to say the same thing — flat, warm, sarcastic, delighted, unconvinced. Slide to the one you want and let go.

Say
Ask
Neg

Change the subject

Combine optional modifiers to change up the meaning of every other tile with one touch. Change who (or what) you’re talking about, turn a statement into its opposite, or make every statement a question instead: “That would” + “Ask” + “Oops” = “Would that be a bad idea?”

A different set of tiles for typing.

The instant there’s text in the box, the sixteen tiles stop being replies and become the things you need while composing.

  • Stalls

    Hang on, I’m not done — said out loud without touching what you’re writing, so nobody takes your silence as a finished turn.

  • Sends

    Frame the line as you send it: as an opinion, a request, a complaint, a check that you were understood.

  • Display mode

    Show what you’re saying in large print, so people can read your words too. Turn the text upside-down with a tap to show it to someone across from you. No need to hand over your phone or huddle up next to each other.

  • Don’t type the same thing twice

    Everything you say — or draft — stays in the history box. Tap a line to say it again, or edit it into a new one. Clear your history at any time from the settings, or when you close the app.

Customizable.

Kuzushi AAC ships with a starting set of tiles from my own speaking patterns. It’s a strong start and it is almost certainly not how you talk.

Every tile, every variant and every opener can be rewritten, moved or replaced from inside the app. Make your own boards from scratch, and export them to a file so a new phone is a restore rather than an evening’s work.

Private by default.

By default, Kuzushi AAC runs entirely on your phone and speaks using the voices already installed on it. In this mode, the app doesn’t collect or share any data at all, and doesn’t send what you type anywhere.

Read the full privacy policy →

Why this exists

I built Kuzushi AAC because I sometimes lose my voice, and I wasn’t satisfied with the options I tried. A lot of them were slower than I’d like, lacked privacy, cost a lot of money, or just didn’t sound like me.

But above all, most of them didn’t seem designed for me. I can hear, type and use a touchscreen well, and my brain likes expressing itself verbally — where most AAC apps are built, reasonably, for people who have difficulty with one or more of those things. I wanted one optimized for the abilities I do have, aimed squarely at holding a fluid conversation with hearing people.

Which is also to say what it isn’t: Kuzushi AAC isn’t designed as a general-purpose AAC, and it isn’t a substitute for appropriate accommodations.

It’s still a work in progress, and it has already been genuinely useful to me. If any of that sounds like you, I hope it’s useful to you too.

— Emma