I am a speech pathologist and use communication devices with my students on a regular basis. the basic concept is that you have a screen with a given set of buttons on it that, when pressed, gives a voice output response. For example, a picture of a drink and you push it and it says (through the ext speaker) "I want a drink of water."
I would like to figure out if this is a possible use for the tablet. Here is what I need help figuring out.
1. Can I divide the screen into 8-10 "button" zones.
2. Can I add picture images and text to those zones
3. Can I make a button press that causes a voice response. (could play a recoprding of the desired message or use voice generation if availible.)
In a perfect setup I would like to be able to make buttons that switch back and forth between screens (ie - a screen of different food choices that could be accessed by pushing a main screen food button)

I have absolutely no programming knowledge, but am hoping there is some program out there that I can adapt in some way to be able to do this. A dynamic display device like this could easily cost thousands of dollars, which makes them unrealistic for most families. This could revolutionize the communication abilities of many children.

Anyone interesed?

Glade helps making GUIs simple to build, but even it's not really going to make this tractable for someone with "absolutely no programming skill".

I don't like to be a wet blanket, but I think you'll need to find a programmer to help you with this one.

OK so lets phrase this a bit differently.

Are there any programmer types out there that have the desire to take a stab at this? I know that it is an odd use for the device, but I think that it could be very successful

Yes, some programming skill is needed (not a whole lot). But, to answer your question, yes, all of the things you describe can be done on an IT.

Tim

I think programming this should be no problem, it would be easiest done with pymaemo, since distribution is probably not that big of a problem it's even simpler. The onlu thing I think many programers couldn't do in a reasonable amount of time is the design of the pictures.

A simpler way is that someone makes a .html site in 800x480 pixel resolution (perfect for the tablet) with the desired buttons (thats very very easy). A tap on one of these buttons will start the desired soundclip. Thats what i don´t know if it will be possible(click on a link, and that then the tablet automatic starts the sound...)...

niklas, What about using pix file, then once the pix are adusted to the right size and res, they could be added by the end user? Okay my lack of programming knowledge is showing, even as I write it down it sounds difficult

zeh,
I wonder if there miight not be such an animal out ther already.

I'm right now testing what is possible, I have just written a small test app, which shows a button with an image on it and which can play a given sound file. The image is given as a png image, so if you can provide me with images, I will probably able to write a small test app for you.
I would like to do it in the following way:
imagine a filesystem structure with a folder like this.
Samples/
Coffee.png
Coffee.wav
Cat.png
Cat.wav

then the remaining work to create a working test app could be done in a few hours

awesome. i will work on the symbol side of things.