14 DAY TRIAL // Ghotit is a plug-in for Office Word designed to enhance the standard spell check capabilities of the application with dyslexic users in mind. Microsoft has long referred to both the Windows operating system and the Office System, its two main cash cows, as platforms, since the products can be easily extended with content designed to run on top of each product. Ghotit is an illustrative example not only of Office's positioning as a platform, but also of how the product can be improved with assistive technologies. The plug-in both signals and attempts to resolve the limitations of Word's spellchecking limitations when it comes down to users with special needs. In this regard, Ghotit is tailored to resolve the problems encountered by users affected by dyslexia.
The founder of Ghotit has himself struggled with dyslexia and the difficulties of creating readable text. “I have no doubt that the people who designed regular spell checkers did not have in mind people with dyslexia. Regular spell checkers are targeting people with good spelling that occasionally make spelling mistakes, not dyslexics like myself” said Chermesh.
Ghotit is meant to help 5-15% of users, which, according to National Institutes of Health, suffer from the symptoms associated with dyslexia. The learning disability, which is manifested through severe reading and writing difficulties, represents an impediment in any normal communication process. Ghotit comes to bring some normality to people struggling with the disability.
The proprietary technology in Ghotit involves a complex algorithm that performs spell checking tasks in the context of the entire text, and focusing on isolated words. By taking into consideration the context rather than specific textual elements, Ghotit is capable of correcting the overall text rather than just its elements. At the same time, via the integrated dictionary service and the text-to-speech service users can double check that their message is correct.
At this point in time Ghotit is offered both as a service in the Cloud and as a downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Word. The plug-in integrates seamlessly with the Ribbon/Fluent graphical user interface of Office Word 2007 and offers users easy access to its functions. The same is valid for Office 2003.
“Ghotit spellchecker was designed for people like me, people who have completely lost their confidence to write. With Ghotit, I now write confidently, continuing to misspell as I always have, but with the confidence that Ghotit is there with me to review my writing and offer the right corrections” Chermesh added.