Frictionless Philosophy
Getting AAC into the hands of people who need it, with nothing in the way
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, public domain
free 
school 
home 
talk 
friends 
help
Six tiles from a MoCo board. Nothing to buy, nothing to approve, nothing to wait for.
Our goal is simple to state and hard to do: remove the friction that keeps AAC tools out of the hands of the people who need them.
Friction comes in many forms. It is a purchase order that nobody will sign. It is a compliance review that takes a semester. It is an insurance form that takes a year. It is a device that costs more than a family can spend, an app that needs Wi-Fi in a classroom that has none, or a symbol set that only speaks one language. This page explains how we try to remove each one.
The short version: Model Communicator is free, needs no account, works offline in any browser or on an iPad, keeps everything on the device, and shares nothing with AI tools. There is nothing to buy, nothing to approve, and nothing to wait for.
What frictionless looks like
The Bermuda Triangle of AAC
In K-12 schools, AAC tools often disappear into what we call the Bermuda Triangle of AAC, a phrase we first heard on an AAC podcast and have repeated ever since. The three points of the triangle are the Curriculum, Technology and Special Education departments. Each agrees that a student needs a communication tool. Each believes another department should pay for it. While they work it out, the student waits, sometimes for a school year, sometimes longer.
Our answer is to remove the question. Model Communicator costs nothing, so there is no invoice to route and no budget to argue over. A speech-language pathologist, a teacher or a parent can put it on a device today. Departments can still coordinate, and we hope they do, but a student no longer has to wait for them.
Compliance Without Paperwork
There is very little to review, because there is very little we collect.
COPPA and school use
No accounts needed, so schools can hand MoCo to a student without giving us any personal information.
HIPAA
We do not collect protected health information. Communication content never leaves the device.
GDPR
Your rights, in plain language, for communicators and families in Europe.
Privacy Policy
What we collect, what we never collect, and why. Written to be read in a few minutes.
Privacy law is a second source of friction. Before a school or clinic can adopt a tool, someone has to confirm it will not put them out of compliance with FERPA, HIPAA, COPPA or state student privacy law. For most software that means a long review of what data is collected and where it goes.
Deployment Without Barriers
Getting an AAC tool onto a device should not require a capital budget or a technician.
No expensive device required
Model Communicator runs in any web browser on the hardware a school or family already has: a Chromebook, a Windows or Mac laptop, an Android or Fire tablet, or a phone.
iPad, for free
Our iPad app is free on the App Store. If you already use iPads, deploy it with your existing tools; our deployment guides walk IT staff through it.
Touch Chromebooks
Our free Chrome extension turns a touch-screen Chromebook, the most common device in American classrooms, into a communication device.
Every browser
We support every modern web browser so that we meet people where they already are, instead of asking them to change devices to reach us.
No Waiting
Outside of school, the friction is usually insurance. A dedicated AAC device can cost thousands of dollars, and getting one funded means evaluations, prior authorizations, denials and appeals. Families and adults who need to communicate can wait months.
Model Communicator asks for none of that. There is no insurance paperwork, no prescription and no registration. Open the web app, or install the iPad app, and start communicating. If a funded device arrives later, nothing has been lost in the meantime.
Your Data Stays With You
Everything stays local
By default, boards, settings and the words you use stay on the device. An account is optional, and only if you choose to save boards to the cloud do they leave your device.
No registration
You never have to create an account to communicate.
Your own backups
Back up boards and settings to your own device or storage, so you are never dependent on us to keep them. See profiles and backup for the iPad.
Nothing shared with AI tools
We do not send what you say to any AI service. Many school boards now forbid sharing student data with AI tools, and Model Communicator complies by design. See Use of AI.
Better battery life
Because the apps do not send every tap to a server or run AI in the cloud, they use less network and less power, which matters on a device that has to last a school day.
Nothing to track
We do not collect the words anyone says and we do not build profiles. Our Privacy Policy says what little we do collect.
Works Anywhere
A communication tool that stops working when the Wi-Fi does is not a communication tool. Model Communicator does not require an internet connection to work. The iPad app runs in airplane mode. The web app keeps working offline after its first load. That makes it usable on a school bus, in a hospital, in a rural community with poor coverage, and in regions of the world where connectivity cannot be assumed.
Language is the other half of anywhere. Today Model Communicator is English only. That is friction too, and we plan to remove it: our goal is to expand to every language so that Model Communicator can reach every region of the world.
no wifi 
anywhere 
language - world
Airplane mode, a school bus, a rural clinic. It keeps working.
Symbols Without Licensing Fees
Commercial AAC apps usually license a symbol library from a third party, and those licensing fees are a large part of why the apps cost hundreds of dollars. We do not license a commercial symbol set. Our symbols are our own, and we can offer them at no cost because we made them once, using AI image tools with as little impact as we could manage, and then reviewed and corrected them by hand. Our goal is to make future symbols on our own hardware, with even less electricity. Our Use of AI and Carbon Commitment pages explain how.
love 
happy 
family 
play 
learn 
read
Our own symbols: made once, reviewed by hand, free forever.
Companion Pages
This philosophy shapes two other commitments we have written down.
Removing friction for the people who need AAC, using AI carefully, and keeping our footprint small are not separate goals. A tool that runs on the device you already own, offline, without cloud AI, is at once cheaper, more private, more reliable and lighter on the planet.
Nothing in the way. Start today.
Free, no account, works offline. If something is still standing between you and getting AAC into someone's hands, tell us. Removing it is the job.