GazeTo — A guide for everyone who learns and communicates with their eyes

Welcome! GazeTo is a learning and communication platform for eye gaze — developed as part of the AssistUK project, especially for people who use or are learning Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).

You need no prior experience and no special hardware. GazeTo runs in the browser and works with eye gaze just as well as with a mouse or touch.

👁️ Eye gaze · Mouse · Touch — everything works.
Whether you steer with your eyes (with any eye-gaze system), click with a mouse,
use a trackball or tap the screen with your finger — GazeTo responds to each of
these input methods without you having to switch anything.

📑 Contents

1. What is GazeTo?
2. Who is practising today? — Profiles
3. How do I control it? Eyes, mouse, touch
4. Eye gaze — set it up once
5. The level model — the 7 competence levels
6. Finding and starting activities
7. An activity from A to Z
8. My Area — the curated selection
9. Assessment — the eye-gaze evaluation
10. Progress — the intervention cycle
11. Scene displays — your own talking pictures
12. Adjusting settings
13. Switching language
14. Installing GazeTo and using it offline
15. Privacy — everything stays local

👁️ 1. What is GazeTo?

GazeTo helps you learn eye-gaze control step by step — from the very first look to confident communication with symbols. It offers more than 180 activities that are fun and at the same time build important gaze skills.

GazeTo is aimed at two groups at once:

• 🧑 the practising person — they play, explore and communicate with their gaze.
• 🧑‍⚕️ the support person (therapist, teacher, family member) — they choose

activities, assess the current stage and follow the progress.

👋 2. Who is practising today? — Profiles

When you first start, you create a profile. Each profile stores its own progress, preferred settings and age group.

How to create a profile:

• 👆 Tap "New profile".
• Enter a name and choose an avatar or a colour.
• Choose the age group (child, teenager, adult, senior) — it steers which

activities are suggested.

Tip: You can switch the profile at any time via the profile icon at the top right.

🎯 3. How do I control it?

GazeTo is built from the ground up so that three input worlds work equally well:

The clever part: There is no need to switch between modes. Someone who picks a target with their eyes and then continues with a trackball — no problem.

🔧 4. Eye gaze — set it up once

⚠️ IMPORTANT for eye-gaze users:
GazeTo makes the clicks itself through the dwell system. Your eye-gaze device
— from any manufacturer — should ONLY move the mouse pointer — it should not
generate its own clicks and not trigger hardware dwell.

How to set it up:

1. Open the Settings (gear icon at the bottom).
2. Set the input method to "Mouse pointer / eye gaze".
3. Set the dwell time — how long you have to look until something triggers.

To begin with, 500–800 ms is often good; for a very imprecise gaze, longer.

1. Choose the size and colour of the gaze cursor so it is clearly visible.

Tip: Make sure your eye-gaze device is well calibrated and the seating distance to the screen is right. This noticeably improves accuracy.

🪜 5. The level model

GazeTo organises all activities into 7 competence levels — they build on each other:

Each level has its own colour, which runs through the whole app.

🎮 6. Finding and starting activities

Via "Activities" (in the navigation at the bottom) you find all exercises.

How to filter:

• 👥 Choose an audience (All, Child, Teenager, Adult, Senior).
• 🪜 Choose a level (1–7) — or "All" for the full list.
• The selected level filter stays until you choose a new one.

Tap an activity to open the detail page. There you can set difficulty (Easy/Standard), play duration and more options before starting.

▶️ 7. An activity from A to Z

1. Choose an activity → the detail page opens.
2. Optionally adjust difficulty and duration. "Adjust" reveals more options

(e.g. instrument, background music, background image).

1. Tap "Start" — the activity opens in full screen.
2. Play with gaze, mouse or touch. A pause button is always reachable.
3. When the duration ends, the review appears with stars and a gaze-path overview.

Tip for professionals: On the detail page there is a "For professionals" section with the activity's classification in the frameworks (Leber, DAGG-3, Eye Gaze Pathway) and observation tips.

✨ 8. My Area

"My Area" is the curated selection for the practising person. Activities that the support person marks with the star in the list appear here — so the practising person can easily move through a prepared selection on their own.

🩺 9. Assessment — the eye-gaze evaluation

For professionals and therapists there is a guided assessment that places the current development stage and recommends matching levels + intervention approaches.

How it works:

1. Open Progress → "Start assessment assistant" (or the "For professionals"

section on an activity detail page).

1. Answer 6 short questions about observable behaviour (about 5 minutes).
2. You receive a recommended entry level, the classification in the frameworks

and concrete intervention approaches.

The assessment is based on recognised frameworks (Tobii Dynavox DAGG-3, Irene Leber, Eye Gaze Pathway). It is an orientation tool and does not replace a formal diagnostic evaluation.

📈 10. Progress — the intervention cycle

The Progress screen shows the history and follows the intervention cycle: Assessment → Plan → Intervention → Re-assessment.

Here you find:

• session count, practice days and streaks ("days in a row")
• a gaze evaluation (screen coverage, fixations, side distribution)
• recommended next steps and a weekly plan
• the focus areas that steer the recommendations on the start screen

🖼️ 11. Scene displays — your own talking pictures

With the scene-display editor you make a favourite photo talk: you mark spots in the picture (mum, the pet, the favourite toy) — and they say something, ideally in your own voice.

How to do it:

1. Upload or take a photo.
2. Drag a rectangle over a spot → a talking hotspot is created.
3. Set a label and spoken text (or make a voice recording).
4. Save — the scene appears as its own activity in "My Area".

This turns a familiar moment into a real conversation — exactly what motivates and builds strength for communication.

⚙️ 12. Adjusting settings

In the Settings (gear at the bottom) you can adjust, among other things:

• input method and dwell time (see chapter 4)
• the gaze cursor (style, size, colour)
• volume, sounds and background music
• contrast and font size (also any time in the top bar)
• switch or edit the profile

🌍 13. Switching language

At the top right in the bar you find the language icon (e.g. "DE"). Tap it to choose from all available languages — with flag and language name.

The whole app switches immediately. Content that is not yet translated in a language is shown automatically in English — so everything always stays readable.

📲 14. Installing GazeTo and using it offline

GazeTo can be installed like an app and then works offline.

• On tablet/phone: Choose "Add to home screen" in the browser menu.
• On a computer: Click the install icon in the address bar — or confirm the

"Install GazeTo" prompt.

After the first installation, GazeTo runs fully without internet — ideal for therapy and school.

🔒 15. Privacy

GazeTo stores no personal data on servers. Profiles, progress and scene displays stay exclusively in the browser of the device (locally). There is no cloud transfer and no tracking.

🎥 Eye gaze runs purely locally — no video is recorded or transmitted.

*GazeTo is developed by AssistUK — Assistance & Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Contact: lars.tiedemann@assistuk.net · www.assistuk.net*