Turning Feedback into Features: Cephable’s Consortium Making Waves 

In a previous blog, we introduced you to the Consortium, our group of power users who work directly with our product team, providing invaluable feedback that drives Cephable’s development. As we continue to champion ‘nothing about us without us,’ our Consortium has expanded, welcoming diverse voices and insights that shape our assistive technology.

From improved accessibility features to a more intuitive user interface, every update seeks to reflect our commitment to our users. Our latest platform update, 2.1.0, is particularly exciting because it delivers on the most consistently requested features from all Consortium members. In short, they asked, we listened, and our product team delivered.

From a Few to a Force: Our Growing Community

Our Consortium has grown significantly since the initiation of the program. We’ve welcomed new members from various backgrounds, each bringing unique perspectives and ideas that continue to enrich our development process. Our Consortium includes men and women who have lived experiences with visible and invisible disabilities including cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy, spinal cord injuries, neurodivergence, ALS, chronic pain, and muscular dystrophy. Our members come from a variety of careers and/or academic programs that include technical writing, software engineering, PhD candidacy, legal work, occupational therapy, competitive gaming, music, business ownership/executives, substitute teaching, real estate, and politics.

We bring in new cohorts, generally no more than 2-3 individuals each month, to maintain our ability to provide individualized attention for feedback and meetings. Recent member testimonials highlight how their involvement has led to tangible improvements in our products. One member shared:

“Cephable is more than just a platform. It’s a community of kind, compassionate, and determined people that make me feel empowered to do more.”

Flexibility in the Ethnographic Feedback Process

We’ve designed our program with an ethnographic approach in mind. By immersing ourselves in the real, lived experiences of our users, we gain insights that drive meaningful innovation. We go beyond traditional surveys and interviews, intending to understand each Consortium member from a holistic perspective and to gain contextual insight of their experiences and needs.

This means observing and asking questions about how they engage with technology across different environments—be it at home, work, or during social and community events. By using this approach, we gather valuable data that helps us create solutions that are not only technically robust but also empathetically aligned with our users’ lived experiences.

Understanding the unpredictable nature of living with disabilities, we continually adapt our process to be as flexible as possible. Whether accommodating health flare-ups, hospital visits, or other unexpected life circumstances, we continue to learn the importance of lowering the burden of day-to-day life for people with disabilities. They are required to be some of the most adaptable people because they live in a world and within systems that aren’t built with them in mind. If they often have no choice but to be flexible, we should always choose to be flexible as well.

One of our Consortium members shared:

“Cephable is a Swiss Army Knife…not just for me, but for everyone who comes through our AT clinic. It’s the right time to be injured – if there is a right time. My independence keeps me sane. So, anything I can do independently helps. This is going to “keep us sane!”

From Suggestion to Solution

The real-world impact of our Consortium is best illustrated through the newest features that were unveiled in our most recent release. Every member of the Consortium up to this point requested features that we started to categorize as “global controls.” These features include the ability to use your voice to open & close apps on your computer or turn your microphone and camera settings on/off. Additionally, based on user feedback, Cephable now automatically switches its profile based on the program that you are currently using. These suggestions heard time and time again, led to elevating these requests on the roadmap for faster product improvements.

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead, we plan to expand the Consortium further, exploring new focus areas and continuing to introduce features from the experts, the Cephable community of users. If you love using Cephable and want to jump into our inner circle, fill out the Consortium form on our website. Maybe your ideas will become features in one of our next updates. You also don’t have to be a Consortium member to try out the new version of Cephable or to share your ideas.

“It’s the simple things that make a big difference. This is just version two. Version TWO. [Cephable] is just getting started!”