Espy, a picture address book for Mac OS X

By Ricky Buchanan • May 28, 2008

Icon for Espy Espy is a newly released Mac OS X Address book program whose browsing is based on pictures of your contacts. It’s a great example of a program not designed specifically for people with a disability but having great applicability for people with memory, intellect, or reading problems.

Although the default mode is a little more complex visually, it’s easy to set Espy up so the interface is very simple:

Espy interface showing 4 pictures of contacts, and a drawer on the right showing information about the highlighted contact

The image in the bottom left is Espy’s default, used when there’s no photo attached to the entry. The top right image is not a photo, it’s an icon that person uses in most of her online presence though so it jogs my memory more effectively! The Espy website has other suggestions such as using photos of food from a restaurant to go with the restaurant entry. Putting the trade mark logo of a business with the entry for that business could be another visual cue.

Espy uses your existing Address Book database and any changes you make to information in Espy are made to this database directly. This means you can switch back and forth between using Espy and using the regular Address Book program without any trouble.

Website: Espy

- Ricky Buchanan

Categories: Intellectually Impaired, Neurologically Impaired, New Software, Other Impairment, Supporters, Users
Tags: free trial, rolodex, shareware, simple interface, visual address book, visual rolodex

About the Author

Ricky Buchanan

Ricky Buchanan is 34 years old and the founder and main writer for ATMac. She's bedridden with severe CFS/ME or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder - the doctors are not sure. When she's not working on ATMac or her other websites she composes music, listens to audio books, does other disability advocacy, watches TV with her flatmate, and enjoys her cat.

Newest Posts

OneThingToday: Focus On What’s Important

OneThingToday looks like a great task manager to help you focus on what’s important today. Once you’ve used the calendar view to input your tasks, switch to the “Today” view to get a single box (optionally transparent) which floats on top of your workspace, constantly reminding you of what you’re working on.

Free PDF To Word Converter For OS X

A PDF to Word converter will only work on text-based PDFs, not image-based ones, but it’s very useful if there is a PDF that you need to convert back to a document format so you can edit it. AnyBizSoft is giving away free licenses via their Facebook page until August 8, 2010.

Apple Announces Magic Trackpad

Amongst updates to the iMac series of computers, Apple yesterday announced an external bluetooth trackpad. This works exactly like the MacBook’s built-in multi-touch trackpad but has a working area of approximately 4.3 by 4.3 inches (11cm by 11cm). A full set of gestures, including the VoiceOver “trackpad as screen” gesture control are available.

Digit-Eyes uses iPhone + Printer to label things

Digit-Eyes uses your printer to print barcode labels which you can then associate with text or audio recordings. To read the labels back, you photograph the labels with your iPhone camera and then the iPhone will read the text or replay the audio for you.

iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch AAC Apps Rundown

Jane Farrall has constructed a great table listing all the important features about all the known assistive/adaptive communication (AAC) applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. She’s actively updating the table in response to feedback, this is a great resource for those looking for information about AAC out there.

Alternative Keyboard Layouts

Virtually all computer keyboards in English speaking countries are arranged so that the letter keys, if you read from the top-left, start of with QWERTY. What are the alternatives and why would you want to change anyway?

Nuance Buys MacSpeech: What Now?

It’s been announced that the MacSpeech company has been purchased by Nuance. Nuance are the company behind the Windows product “Dragon NaturallySpeaking“ and other recent Dragon products for iPod Touch and iPhone. So what does this mean for MacSpeech Dictate and the other MacSpeech products? What would you like to happen?

Doing Math on a Mac

Doing math can be a big problem for students who can’t write or work with rulers and protractors and compasses. It’s hard to type math problems in a regular word processor, and it’s impossible to work out “protractor and ruler” type problems. Here are some programs which can help students do this type of maths on a computer

Mainstreaming Assistive Technologies In Education

Most of the students with disabilities in an educational setting will have some type of print-related disability; having programs that support reading and writing available on all computers limits the stigma for students who need the help and makes these tools available to other students too. Access should be available to everybody.

ATMac

Assistive Technology for Apple and Mac Users