Ask instead of navigate
A person should be able to ask for a program, make a note, hear a reminder, contact a caregiver, or ask a question using ordinary speech.
Voice-first • Accessible • Human-centered
Technology that remembers the context when a person cannot.
CareTV is an assistive television and communication platform designed around memory, attention, sequencing, and cognitive accessibility—not around complicated remotes, menus, passwords, or repeated explanations.
Our goal
Make everyday media, reminders, communication, and support available through simple, familiar interactions while preserving continuity across rooms and devices.
Make everyday media, reminders, communication, and support available through simple, familiar interactions while preserving continuity across rooms and devices.
What changes
The interface should carry more of the cognitive load.
Keep context
Useful room, device, and conversation state can persist so the person does not have to reconstruct everything from memory.
Use familiar screens
Televisions, phones, tablets, and PCs can become coordinated parts of one accessible environment rather than separate technology puzzles.
The paradigm shift
From remembering the interface to the interface remembering the situation.
Many digital systems assume that a person can remember instructions, manage credentials, navigate menus, sequence steps, and repeatedly explain what happened before. Those assumptions can become barriers in their own right.
Conventional interaction
- The person remembers what to do next.
- Each service starts with little or no context.
- Important notices arrive once and disappear into paperwork.
- A caregiver often has to reconstruct the situation manually.
Cognitive-accessible interaction
- The system can preserve useful context.
- Voice and simple visual choices reduce sequencing demands.
- Reminders and explanations can be repeated on demand.
- Trusted helpers can participate without erasing the person’s agency.
Why government should care
Public communication often depends on memory-intensive processes: letters, deadlines, portals, passwords, call trees, case numbers, repeated identity checks, and one-time explanations. CareTV is a working research platform for showing what changes when cognitive accessibility is treated as a first-class design requirement.
Explore public-policy ideas →Global by design
Language should be a preference, not another barrier.
CareTV is being structured for multilingual pages, Unicode text, translated interface labels, locale-aware presentation, and future right-to-left layouts. We prefer explicit language choice over silently guessing from a person’s country.
Initial language pages are included in this beta build. Translation will continue to be reviewed and refined as the project develops.
Open research, practical prototypes
CareTV is being developed by Open Access Media Lab, an educational nonprofit research and development organization working on open and accessible media technology. The aim is to build reusable approaches that can help families, caregivers, public agencies, researchers, and technology teams.
- Voice-first access
Natural spoken requests instead of menu navigation. - Caregiver connection
Communication, notes, reminders, and intercom features. - Privacy-conscious design
Keep local listening, cloud services, and stored information deliberately separated. - Device independence
Televisions, PCs, tablets, phones, and future devices can participate. - Originals preserved
User messages, recordings, and source material should remain distinct from AI summaries or translations. - Open development
Research intended to produce reusable accessible technology for public benefit.
Current status: CareTV is in active research and development in Federal Way, Washington. Early work includes room-based television control, voice interaction, assistive communication, media playback, caregiver tools, and cloud-based services.
Contact CareTV
Questions, accessibility feedback, research inquiries, government and policy conversations, and collaboration are welcome.