Projects

Speech & communicationConstructionism & lived experienceSpeech recognition & AI

AVoz: DIY speech recognition

2026

Speech recognition trained to understand my own voice, and AVoz, a mobile app that turns what I say into a clear synthesised voice.

The challenge

Dictation, automatic captions and voice assistants are trained on typical speech. For people with dysarthria, like me, they make too many mistakes to be useful.

The approach

Fernando Lobo and I fine-tuned OpenAI’s Whisper models (medium and large-v3) with LoRA on recordings of my own speech, using consumer-grade hardware. AVoz then speaks the recognised text with a synthesised voice, with all processing done locally.

Outcomes

On 100 held-out utterances, the word error rate fell from 49% to 17% with the medium model and from 30% to 12% with large-v3. The method is replicable: the code, the LoRA configuration and a step-by-step guide are open source (MIT licence), so other people can train a model for their own voice, in their own language.

Preprint, submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. It has not been peer-reviewed yet.

Play video: AVoz: every voice deserves to be heard

Related publications

• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2026). DIY customized speech recognition for a person with speech disabilities (arXiv:2611.11327). arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.11327

Speech & communication

EasyVoice

2004 – 2011

Lets people with speech impairments make voice calls by typing. A virtual keyboard and a speech synthesiser are connected to internet calling apps such as Skype.

The challenge

People who cannot speak intelligibly are often shut out of phone calls — one of the most basic tools of social and working life.

The approach

Typed text is spoken aloud to the person on the other end of the call, using a virtual keyboard, a speech synthesiser and a VoIP application working together. It grew out of an earlier system, Toque de Voz (2004).

Outcomes

Presented at ASSETS 2007 and ICCHP 2008, praised on the Benetech blog by MacArthur Fellow Jim Fruchterman, and featured on RTP, TVI and TSF in 2009.

Play video: EasyVoice: breaking barriers for people with voice disabilities2:02

Related publications

• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2007). EasyVoice: Integrating voice synthesis with Skype. In Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’07) (pp. 235–236). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1296843.1296889
• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2008). EasyVoice: Breaking barriers for people with voice disabilities. In K. Miesenberger, J. Klaus, W. Zagler, & A. Karshmer (Eds.), Computers helping people with special needs: ICCHP 2008 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5105, pp. 1228–1235). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70540-6_185
• Condado, P. A. (2009). Quebra de barreiras de comunicação para portadores de paralisia cerebral [Doctoral dissertation, University of Algarve].
• Lobo, F. G., Zacarias, M., Condado, P. A., Romão, T., Godinho, R., & Moreno, M. (2011). Evaluating accessible synchronous CMC applications (arXiv:1005.1200v3). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1005.1200

Mobile text entry

EasyWrite

2011 – 2015

A touch-based way of typing on phones and tablets, designed for people with hand coordination problems.

The challenge

Standard on-screen keyboards demand precise taps on small keys — hard or impossible for many people with motor impairments.

The approach

A text-entry method built around larger, more forgiving touch gestures, so that typing depends less on fine motor precision.

Outcomes

Presented at the Mobile Accessibility workshop at INTERACT 2011 and published in Behaviour & Information Technology (2015).

Play video: A text-entry method for mobile devices for people with hand coordination problems1:36

Related publications

• Condado, P. A., Godinho, R., Zacarias, M., & Lobo, F. G. (2011). EasyWrite: A touch-based entry method for mobile devices [Paper presentation]. Workshop on Mobile Accessibility (MOBACC 2011), 13th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2011), Lisbon, Portugal.
• Godinho, R., Condado, P. A., Zacarias, M., & Lobo, F. G. (2015). Improving accessibility of mobile devices with EasyWrite. Behaviour & Information Technology, 34(2), 135–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2014.981584

Smart homes & privacy

Assisted living environments

2015 – 2023

A system that lets people with disabilities control their home from a smartphone, plus research on making such homes richer, safer and more private.

The challenge

Everyday actions such as switching on a light or opening a door can mean waiting for someone else to help.

The approach

Accessible mobile interfaces for home automation systems, followed by research into richer assisted living environments and their security and privacy risks.

Outcomes

Presented at ASSETS 2015 and published in SN Computer Science (2022) and the Journal of Smart Cities and Society (2023).

Play video: Controlling the home environment with a smartphone1:20

Related publications

• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2015). A system for controlling assisted living environments using mobile devices. In Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’15) (pp. 33–38). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2809839
• Condado, P. A., Lobo, F. G., & Carita, T. (2022). Towards richer assisted living environments. SN Computer Science, 3(1), Article 96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-021-00983-0
• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2023). Security and privacy concerns in assisted living environments. Journal of Smart Cities and Society, 2(2), 99–121. https://doi.org/10.3233/SCS-230015

Co-design

Constructionism and lived experience

2003 – 2026

How people with disabilities can build their own technology — from Logo and GoGoBoard in schools to my own perspective as a researcher with cerebral palsy.

The challenge

Assistive technology is too often designed for disabled people rather than with them.

The approach

Constructionism — learning by building — applied first to students with special educational needs and, over two decades, to my own long-term collaboration with Fernando Lobo.

Outcomes

A paper at ASSETS 2026 written from both sides of the collaboration, building on a PhD thesis on breaking communication barriers for people with cerebral palsy (2009) and early case studies (2003–2007). The same do-it-yourself approach now drives AVoz (2026), where I trained speech recognition on my own voice.

Play video: A constructionist approach to develop assistive technologies — ASSETS 20267:17

Related publications

• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2026). A constructionist approach to develop assistive technologies: Perspectives of a person with cerebral palsy and co-worker. In Proceedings of the 28th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’26). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3797867.3832761
• Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2026). DIY customized speech recognition for a person with speech disabilities (arXiv:2611.11327). arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.11327
• Condado, P. A. (2009). Quebra de barreiras de comunicação para portadores de paralisia cerebral [Doctoral dissertation, University of Algarve].
• Norte, S., Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2007). Learning Logo at a high school: Constructionism versus objectivism. In Proceedings of the 11th Eurologo Conference.
• Norte, S., Castilho, N., Condado, P. A., & Lobo, F. G. (2005). GoGoBoard and Logo programming for helping people with disabilities. In Proceedings of the 10th Eurologo Conference (pp. 171–178).
• Condado, P. A., Miquelina, P. F., Norte, S., Castilho, N., Lobo, F. G., & Shahbazkia, H. R. (2004). Information and communication technologies for people with disabilities. In Proceedings of ICL 2004: Interactive Computer Aided Learning International Conference. Carinthia Technology Institute.
• Condado, P., Tomaz, F., Shahbazkia, H. R., & Lobo, F. G. (2003). Information and communication technologies for special needed persons: A case study with a student with cerebral paralysis. In Proceedings of m-ICTE 2003: Second International Conference on Multimedia and Information and Communication Technologies in Education (Vol. 3, pp. 1470–1474).
• Condado, P., & Lobo, F. G. (2003). Communication and information technology in pre-primary school. In Proceedings of m-ICTE 2003: Second International Conference on Multimedia and Information and Communication Technologies in Education (Vol. 3, pp. 1455–1457).

Optimisation

Evolutionary computation

2003 – 2007

Genetic algorithms to explore future landscapes under climate-change scenarios, and multi-objective optimisation for land-use management.

The challenge

Planning land use under climate change means balancing many competing objectives at once.

The approach

Research assistant on the GeneticLand project (POCTI/MGS/37970/2001), applying genetic algorithms to landscape scenarios.

Outcomes

Published in the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research (2007), with Kalyanmoy Deb among the co-authors.

Related publications

• Datta, D., Deb, K., Fonseca, C. M., Lobo, F. G., Condado, P. A., & Seixas, J. (2007). Multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for land-use management problem. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research, 3(4), 371–384.