Mulberry Symbol Set Otsimo Batch

At Otsimo, we embarked on the journey of remaking our AAC app with the goal of enhancing its capabilities. Our focus was on making it more customizable and integrating better text-to-speech models in both Turkish and English languages.

AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. It is a communication method for individuals with difficulties in speech or language.

As we embarked on the development of our AAC application, we sought an open-source symbol set that would align perfectly with our requirements. After careful evaluation, we determined that the Mulberry Symbol Set offered the closest fit to our needs.

With over 3000 symbols, the Mulberry symbol set provided a solid foundation. However, we encountered a few words for which there were no existing symbols. To ensure a comprehensive and culturally relevant AAC experience, we took it upon ourselves to create the missing symbols in-house.

The missing symbols primarily consisted of local words from Turkish culture, which were essential for the first Turkish AAC application we were developing.

My colleague, Naz identified the gaps in the symbol set, meticulously noting the words that needed representation.

To create these symbols, I began searching for reference images;

We found a lot, but there were still specific words that needed to be drawn by hand. These words were not adequately represented by the existing images found on the web.

While reviewing the existing symbol set, I noticed they used a limited color palette for the Mulberry symbols set. I felt the need to clarify and refine these colors due to slight tone differences.

Here are the colors we used;