Accessibility-first software studio
Software you can hear.
TauDesignWorks builds voice-first apps for blind and low-vision people. Point a phone, ask a question, and get a clear, spoken answer — no screen required. And for eyes that work but hurt, a Mac utility that dims the bright parts.
Six apps, one clear voice
Water bill, $84.20, due the 28th.
A mug at your two o'clock, arm's length, beside a closed laptop.
Blackbird Supply, $48.20 — one field left to review.
Flat side toward the panel edge, arrow at the peg — all four on this step face the same way.
Two more in the corner — a lamp and something boxy. Add both?
The quiet one. It says nothing — it just dims the parts of the screen that hurt.
What we make
Six apps that read your mail, see your world, sort your money, explain your manuals, count your rooms, and calm your screen
All six are accessibility-first. Five are voice-first, built to be fully operable without ever looking at the screen; one is for eyes that work but hurt. Same principles, six different jobs.
Iris
Your mail, out loud
Point your phone at an envelope and hear a one-line verdict — who it's from, what it is, how much, and when it's due — before you sit through a full read.
- One spoken verdict, then the details on request
- Tracks what needs doing and when it's due
- OLED-black, jumbo type, AAA contrast throughout
Clair
Eyes that reason, a friend that speaks
A voice-first AI companion that understands the scene in front of you, reads your mail, and talks it through — everyday help, in plain spoken language you can interrupt any time.
- Describes scenes with clock-face directions
- Reads documents intelligently, not just aloud
- Private by design — the camera fires only when you ask
Vellum
Expenses, captured and kept yours
Snap a receipt, say what it was for, and Vellum files a clean, categorized expense in under fifteen seconds — every dollar kept on your device, under your name, out of everyone else's reach.
- A receipt and a sentence — filed in seconds, typing always an equal path
- Every field returns with a confidence mark you confirm — nothing files itself
- Local-first: no account, fully offline, syncs only through your own iCloud
Gloss
Your manuals, answered out loud
Gloss reads the manuals for everything you own — the wardrobe, the sewing machine, the synthesizer — and answers out loud, in order, with the page it came from so you can check the work.
- Reads the pictures — threading paths, exploded views, wordless assembly panels
- Answers from your exact model and revision, and names the page it's on
- Works with the radio off — the whole index lives on your phone, basement or not
Facet
Home inventory, done by ear
Pan a room and Facet counts what's in it. Walk up to any item and it guides you through the details by voice and touch — and nothing gets a value it can't back up.
- Pan the room once and Facet enumerates what's there, then queues it for you
- Guided by voice and touch from the first release — every spoken cue has a haptic equal
- Never invents a value — unknown is a calm, ordinary state, said out loud
Umbra
Selective shade for a too-bright screen
A Mac menu-bar utility for eyes that work but hurt. Umbra dims the bright parts of the screen — the glaring toolbar, the white sidebar — and leaves the rest exactly as it was.
- A hotkey magnification lens that coexists with macOS system zoom
- Invert or shade just the bright region, anchored to its app — it follows Logic Pro's toolbars
- All on-device — nothing recorded, nothing transmitted
How we build
Four commitments in everything we ship
These aren't features we add at the end. They decide what we build and how it behaves from the first line.
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01
Voice-first, not voice-also
The primary interface is speech. Every action has a spoken path — nothing dead-ends at a control you have to see.
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02
Accessible to the letter
WCAG AAA contrast, full keyboard operation, real screen-reader support, and reduced-motion respected — verified, not assumed.
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03
Private by default
The camera fires only when you ask. We process on-device wherever we can and don't keep your images or audio on a server.
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04
Empowering, never clinical
Our apps should feel like a capable friend, not medical equipment. Warm, direct, and never condescending.
The studio
A small studio on Puget Sound, building for the people big software forgets
TauDesignWorks is an independent software design and development studio in Gig Harbor, Washington. We design and build for blind and low-vision people first — and it turns out that when you get that right, the result is calmer and clearer for everyone.
We move deliberately, test on real devices with real assistive technology, and treat accessibility as the brief, not a checkbox.
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Gig Harbor, Washington
Independent and self-directed, on the Kitsap Peninsula.
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Voice-first by discipline
If it can't be done by speaking and listening, it isn't done.
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Privacy as architecture
On-device where possible; nothing persisted server-side.
Get in touch
Building something that should work for everyone?
Whether you want early access to any of our apps, you're a partner in the accessibility community, or you found something on this site that doesn't work for you — we'd like to hear from you.