An app for communication using pictograms is intended for people who are unable to write on a keyboard or record a voice message. TALX utilizes the pictograms that these individuals already use in face-to-face interactions and integrates them into a chat for Android and iOS. In chapter 58 of “Toque de Ingenio,” Jaume Sánchez explains how it evolved from Audi’s work to create an accessible messenger, what features were cut to launch it, and how each function was validated with users and organizations.
Guest: Jaume Sánchez, who was presented in the episode as a former Audi engineer and co-founder of TALX. Interview published: July 8, 2025. Episode: 58. Duration: 1 h 9 min.
In this episode:
- The specific challenge faced by one user, who uses a wheelchair, led to the creation of the app.
- How are 20 starting pictograms selected when there are more than 6,000 available?
- What features have been removed to establish a solid foundation, and which will be added later?
The conversation was recorded at i-mas’ facilities during the same week that TALX released its iOS version and an updated version for Android, following months of the app being available on the market.
Starting with a specific need: Francisca’s challenge
Jaume joined Audi in 2003 and, over several years, developed the design for the fuel filler cap. According to him, he then went on to design the company’s first electric charging station and moved into innovation, where he was responsible for driving various projects forward.
During the pandemic, he organized a 3D printing group that produced face masks for hospitals in Germany. This is how he met TOM, an international organization of maker communities that addresses the challenges faced by people with disabilities, and he went on to establish the first communities in Germany and Spain.
During one of those competitions, Francisca appeared – a young woman from Munich who used a wheelchair and communicated using a tablet with pictograms. The tablet covered the joystick and her field of vision. Jaume and his nephew Óscar designed a mechanism that folded the tablet under the wheelchair when a button was pressed, and the project won the international competition.
Seeing Francisca speak throughout the city sparked the questions that led to the creation of TALX. The tablet couldn’t send messages remotely, it was expensive, and it had an artificial voice. Jaume asked Óscar for an app with the same pictograms, one that could send them remotely from either Android or Apple.
Augmentative communication: starting with the pictograms that the user is already familiar with.
Jaume insists that TALX isn’t creating a new language. Augmentative and alternative communication has been relying on pictures – which the person points to – for a long time, and this collection has grown to over 6,000 pictograms, each representing a specific idea.
That figure presented the initial design decision. Integrating the 6,000 pictograms into a chat would have resulted in slow communication, as the user would have had to search for each one before sending it. The team decided to include 20 by default and allow the user to create and upload the rest, or to have artificial intelligence generate them in the future.
The app allows users to delete, upload, rearrange, and resize those icons. It also provides a keyboard and the usual tools found in a messaging app, so within a group, some people communicate using icons, while others use text or voice.
There’s also a second way of using it: the same pictograms are read aloud during a face-to-face conversation with a doctor or carer. Jaume points out that bringing together the chat and the in-person conversation within a single application avoids having to switch between different solutions.
Validate each function with users and associations.
From the outset, the team worked closely with Francisca and with the institution supporting her in Munich, to understand exactly what she truly needed.
“You can’t create a product without knowing what your customer wants”.
Jaume Sánchez 18:57.
The initial 20 pictograms were selected by asking associations for five basic ones each, until the list was complete. This is a simple method that replaces the team’s assumptions with the responses of those who use this type of communication on a daily basis.
Visits to care centers revealed deficiencies that were not anticipated. At the Catalan Federation for Cerebral Palsy, they met users who were sending messages via Facebook Messenger from a computer on the third floor, with no solution available on their mobile phones. In an association for brain damage, a user’s family reported that they had to take away her tablet because she was spending the entire day sending messages.
Another piece of information came from Germany: approximately 90% of users of those entities were using Apple devices, largely due to their accessibility features. The MVP had only been launched on Android, so the iOS version became the priority. That’s the key learning that’s being pursued. User experience design: It’s important to observe real people before assuming a hypothesis is valid.
Trim unnecessary functions to establish a strong foundation.
The development didn’t follow a straightforward path. Óscar programmed a large part of the app, but he left it at 90% while joining a software company in Italy. Jaume, a mechanical engineering engineer, sought out freelancers and learned software, user experience, and tools like Figma.
The MVP launched on Android in November, and at the time of the interview, it had already exceeded 20,000 downloads. However, that initial version included a wide range of features, but it lacked the essential functions – such as connecting with contacts and creating groups. The team rebuilt the backend and decided to simplify things, focusing on a more streamlined version with fewer features and a stronger foundation upon which to add further functionality.
Among the features that were down was an alarm that instantly notified authorized members of the group. Jaume explained that it would be reintroduced in the next update, scheduled for one month later, along with the ability to send location with a single click. The AI-powered response feature, which suggested five possible answers, was also disabled.
The to-do list includes a QR code that, when scanned at a doctor’s office or in a restaurant, downloads the specific pictograms for that location. They have also begun testing Apple’s eye-tracking technology with a musician who is playing with their eyes.
A product that is accessible from the outset, not an expensive adaptation.
Jaume describes a common approach to dealing with disability in design: to treat each individual case as an unusual situation requiring a specific, often expensive, and frequently subsidized solution. His perspective is the opposite: many people share the same problem and deserve a scalable product.
“We’re going to work directly on a product that’s accessible from the outset, one that will ultimately be useful for everyone”.
Jaume Sánchez 47:43.
Because TALX isn’t just for people with disabilities. Family members and carers use it with text and voice, and every user who needs pictograms also downloads the app, bringing with them a specific social environment.
He been asked repeatedly why he wasn’t integrating with WhatsApp or Telegram. Jaume responded that a small startup was able to build the tool much faster than by negotiating with a large platform that most of the population wasn’t interested in.
He also opted for a direct approach: users can download the app without needing permission from any association or administration. Working with these entities is useful for understanding needs, but the project is independent of them. Much of the downloading came from Africa and South America.
How does a free app stay afloat?
TALX costs nothing, and Jaume admits that the revenue model is still being validated. The initial approach involves in-app purchases: badges at different levels, starting from one euro, which appear on the profile to support the project. They had already sold two of these during that week.
The second avenue will involve artificial intelligence: buying tokens from a provider and reselling them in packages, for example, one hundred responses or one hundred pictograms for one euro. Later, services like QR codes could allow companies or those seeking greater accessibility to pay for them.
Until now, the project had been funded through personal savings and a credit from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, for a project involving universities, including UPC – to collect data from stress sensors and send it to the app to verify whether an alarm is genuine. Repayment will need to begin in approximately two and a half years, which adds pressure to find a way to monetize it.
The investors were requesting metrics before committing funds, and one entity responded that they had already carried out similar projects in 2010 and 2014, when smartphones and artificial intelligence were not as prevalent as they are now. Jaume decided to continue until his resources ran out.
What can another development team learn?
The TALX case offers four key lessons that can be applied to other products:
- Starting from a language the user already understands. Pictograms existed; the value lies in incorporating them into a chat and making them configurable.
- Ask users in small doses. Requesting five pictograms from each association resulted in a list of options that was significantly better than any initial estimate.
- Remove before adding. An MVP packed with features but missing the basics required a backend rebuild and the gradual reintroduction of those features.
- Design with accessibility in mind from the outset. A product designed for the most challenging situations ended up being useful for everyone, and it scales better than a tailored adaptation.
At the time of the interview, TALX was available free of charge in Apple and Google stores, with over 20,000 downloads and a new iOS version recently released. The figures and plans reflect what Jaume was explaining at the time.
In i-mas, we accompany product design and development When you’re dealing with combining hardware, software, and user experience – particularly for people with diverse abilities beyond what’s typically assumed for most devices – if you’re working on a solution like that Tell us about your project..
To continue reading: A device with a camera and AI that reads text aloud for people with low vision..
Source of article: An interview with Edgar Guerrero and Jaume Sánchez on Toque de Ingenio. The excerpts cited link to the minute of the conversation. The recommendations for other projects are a summarised editorial from i-mas.
