{"id":109944,"date":"2024-05-10T13:18:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/?p=109944"},"modified":"2024-05-10T13:18:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:18:41","slug":"digital-talking-mats-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/digital-talking-mats-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Talking Mats Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Talking Mats is available both as a physical resource and as a digital web-app. In this blog, our Digital Lead, Mark, gives an update on some exciting recent developments on our Digital Talking Mats platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s been over 2 years since we launched our new Digital Talking Mats platform, and we\u2019re so pleased that more and more of the Talking Mats community continue to discover how it can be used to improve conversations in a wide range of contexts and situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re always looking for ways to improve the user experience of Digital Talking Mats, and over the last couple of years we have so appreciated the feedback given by Talking Mats customers &nbsp;who have been using the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This feedback has led to plenty of tweaks and updates behind the scenes, but in this blog I want to highlight some updates we have recently implemented, which we hope will improve the experience for those using our digital platform, and also let you know about what upcoming features are in the pipeline.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Grouping and Deleting Thinkers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Users can now create groups\/categories for their Thinkers, and organise them in a way that is most helpful for their context. Whether it is school classes, hospital wards, or care homes, for example, users can choose what to name the groups, and how many Thinkers are in each group. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"278\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-update-blog-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-109951\" style=\"width:523px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-update-blog-1.png 443w, https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-update-blog-1-300x188.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>As well as creating Thinker groups, users now have the option to delete any Thinker from their list. This may be a former patient, a Thinker from a previous job, or simply a Thinker that was used to test out the digital platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sharing Personalised Mats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For users who are Talking Mats trained and are part of a Digital Talking Mats Organisational Subscription, we\u2019re excited to say that personalised Mats that have been created can be shared with other members of your organisation. This means that if you work in a specialist department and require a bespoke mat for your context, one member of your department can create a personalised Mat, and share with every member on the subscription.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"383\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-Update-blog-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-109946\" style=\"width:469px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-Update-blog-2.png 383w, https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DTM-Update-blog-2-300x188.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 383px) 100vw, 383px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Upcoming Feature: Private Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Talking Mats, we often do consultancy projects with organisations, to create specialist Resources for specific contexts. Sometimes these Resources end up for sale in our shop, for example, our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/product\/new-funeral-planning\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Funeral Planning<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/product\/careers-work-and-employment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Careers, Work &amp; Employment<\/strong><\/a>, and<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/product\/youth-justice-resource\/\">Youth Justice Resources<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other cases, an organisation may wish to have exclusive access to a Talking Mats Resource produced as part of a consultancy. This is easily achieved with physical resources, but has so far not been possible in the context of the digital platform. With the upcoming private resources feature, we will be able to upload a resource and grant access only to a specific organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Talking Mats, we are committed to continually developing and improving our digital product for customers. If you have any feedback, or any ideas for improvements we can explore in the future, please get in touch with us at <a href=\"mailto:info@talkingmats.com\">info@talkingmats.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you are interested in Digital Talking Mats for yourself or your organisation, you can read more about the platform <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/about\/what-is-a-talking-mat\/digital-talking-mats\/\">here<\/a>. We have subscriptions available from as little as \u00a35 per month and you can see the available options in our shop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/shop\/#tab-DigitalTalkingMats\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>. <\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talking Mats is available both as a physical resource and as a digital web-app. In this blog, our Digital Lead,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,8,46,394,17,27,10],"tags":[11,13,45,94,351,395],"class_list":["post-109944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-app","category-blog","category-digital-talking-mats","category-development","category-participation","category-person-centred-approach","category-personalisation","tag-personalisation","tag-talking-mats","tag-digital-2","tag-person-centred","tag-digital-talking-mats","tag-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Digital Talking Mats Update - Improving Communication, Improving Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Talking Mats is a social enterprise whose vision is to improve the lives of people with communication difficulties. How Talking Mats can improve communication and lives.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.talkingmats.com\/digital-talking-mats-update\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Digital Talking Mats Update - Improving Communication, Improving Lives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Talking Mats is a social enterprise whose vision is to improve the lives of people with communication difficulties. 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