Make It Easy - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is Make It Easy?
Make It Easy is an app that turns hard words into easy ones. The app creates EasySnaps—simpler versions of text, photos, or questions you provide.
You can use Make It Easy to:
- Take a photo of words, and the app will create an EasySnap to make them easier to understand.
- Upload a file or copy a web link, and the app will simplify the text into an EasySnap.
- Ask a question, and the app will give you a simple answer in an EasySnap.
- Tap the play button 🔊 to hear the EasySnap read out loud (not the original text).
- Speak instead of typing by using your phone’s microphone to create an EasySnap.
- Describe a photo by taking a picture—the app will tell you what is in the image in an EasySnap.
- Get explanations for hard words by tapping on underlined blue text in an EasySnap.
How do I set up my profile?
- Tap on your profile picture to change it.
- Enter your first name and last name.
- Add your email address and phone number (if you want to).
- Press the green Save button to keep your details.
How do I create an EasySnap?
- Choose how you want to create an EasySnap:
- 📸 Camera – Take a picture (the app can describe the image too).
- 🖼 My Photos – Choose a photo from your phone.
- 📂 Upload a file – Pick a document. (coming soon)
- 🔗 Link – Copy and paste a website link. (coming soon)
- ❓ Ask a question – Type a question to get an easy answer.
- 📝 Paste words – Copy text from another app or use your microphone to speak instead of typing.
- The app will create an EasySnap in Easy English, Easy Read, or Plain English.
- Tap the play button 🔊 to hear the EasySnap read out loud.
What are EasySnaps?
EasySnaps are made from text, photos, or questions. You can:
- Read or listen to them.
- Search for them later in your history page.
- Click blue text to open links, call numbers, or email addresses.
- Tap underlined blue words for a explanation of hard words.
How do I switch between different EasySnap levels?
At the top of an EasySnap, there are one, two, or three dot options. Tap them to switch between Easy English, Easy Read, and Plain English.
What do the buttons at the top do?
- ℹ️ Info Button – Learn about each part of the app.
- ↩️ Back Arrow – Go back to the previous screen.
- 🏠 Home Button – Return to the home screen with six main buttons.
How do I give feedback?
At the bottom of an EasySnap, you can:
- 👍 Tap thumbs up if the EasySnap was good.
- 👎 Tap thumbs down if something was wrong (you can say what was bad).
How do I listen to an EasySnap?
Tap the speaker button 🔊 at the bottom of the EasySnap to hear it read aloud.
How do I change the voice or speed?
- Go to Settings > Voices to pick a different voice.
- Adjust the speech speed slider to make the voice faster or slower.
- Tap the green play button ▶️ to hear a preview.
- It is important to know that the voices used are ai generated and are not human voices.
How do I share my EasySnap?
Tap the dart 🎯 at the bottom to:
- Email, text, or post the EasySnap.
- Include the original photo (if it was from an image).
Can I turn emojis on or off?
Yes! You can turn emojis on or off in the Settings menu. If you don’t want emojis in your EasySnaps, go to Settings > Emojis and switch them off.
How do I know if words are clickable?
- Text in blue means you can tap it to open a website, call a phone number, or email someone.
- Underlined blue words are hard words. Tap them to see a simple explanation.
- You can also tap the speaker button in the pop-up to hear the explanation read aloud.
Can the app adjust to my phone’s settings?
Yes! The app uses:
- Your phone’s font size and language settings.
- Larger text if you have it enabled.
- Your system language to match your preferences.
Where can I find my past EasySnaps?
Go to History to see all your past EasySnaps. Use the search bar to find a specific one.
How long are my EasySnaps saved for?
Your EasySnaps stay in your History for 30 days.
After 30 days, they are deleted forever.
You cannot get them back once they are deleted.
To save an EasySnap, you can send it to yourself. You can use text, email or even Whatsapp to do this.
How do you keep my stuff private and safe?
When you send text or a photo through Make It Easy, it goes to our ai processor through our secure private API. Our ai rewrites the words and sends the result back.
Your information is not used to train AI, is not shared, and is deleted by OpenAI after a short safety-check period (up to 30 days to check for illegal uses). Make It easy stores your content in our secure servers in our Tier 4 (highest security available) data centre in Australia for 30 days (so you can see your history for 30 days).
After 30 days, we keep de-identified data for university research purposes.
The app can only see the photos or items you choose to upload to Make it easy – nothing else on your device is visible.
What is an API (Application Programming Interface)
An API is a safe “digital bridge” that lets our app talk to the ai language tool.
When you take a photo or paste text, the app sends the words across this bridge. The ai rewrites the words and sends them straight back. The Make it easy app does not give the ai access to your phone, any of your other photos or files, or anything else.
In more technical words, an API (Application Programming Interface) is a structured way for one piece of software (Make it easy App) to request something from another (the ai).
It sets the rules for:
- what the app can ask
- how the request must be formatted
- what type of answer it will get back
- how errors are managed when it mucks up (our app is not perfect, but we are always working to make it better)
Why this matters
- You don’t run the ai inside of your phone (phones are not big or fast enough for this yet!)
- The app accesses ai “on demand” through the API.
- This means that we can update the “back-end” of the app, its features and how it uses ai without creating a whole new version of the app.
What is a Tier 4 Data Centre and how are they protected?
A Tier 4 data centre is the highest-rated, most fault-tolerant type of data centre in the international Uptime Institute standard. It is designed so that nothing can take it offline – not a power cut, not equipment failure, not maintenance, and not human error.
A Tier 4 data centre in Australia is treated as critical infrastructure under Australia’s Security of Critical Infrastructure Act (SOCI) so it is protected through multiple layers of physical, digital, and operational security intended to prevent terrorism, sabotage, or unauthorised access. This is considered one of the strongest regulatory frameworks in the world.
It is really interesting how well they are protected – 24/7 protected and all staff must have high level security clearances with biometric access, military style protection, blast-resistant architecture, and of course, the highest level of cyber security as well as physical security. You can find out more at https://kpmg.com/au/en/insights/risk-regulation/critical-infrastructure-reforms.html if you would like to geek out as much as we do!
What research are you doing on EasySnaps and Make it easy?
We are currently working with an Australian University to see how to formally test the most useful ways people use Make it easy, as well as the quality of the EasySnaps the app makes. When the research arrangement is finalised, we will announce it!
All information we share with the university will be de-identified – which means data will shared without anyone’s names or personal information connected, unless each person gives their specific permission direct to the University.
Which models do we use?
Currently, we use a range of ai models, depending on which works best for each feature and writing level. We also update and upgrade as new models become available.
How do you test the quality of the output of EasySnaps?
We test EasySnaps almost daily, and rework the back-end of the app regularly. We test the results using the Australian Health Literacy Editor, the Hemingway Editor, Flesch and Kinkaid readability tools, direct measurement against ISO international standards (for our Plain Language feature), the European Union’s official language tools and of course, fabulous feedback from our users through the app.
All of these help us to work toward greater consistency and higher quality EasySnaps.
We also test many of the languages with native users of those languages, though this testing is not as regular as our English version testing. So far, we have informally tested the following languages: Farsi, Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Finnish, Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesian, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Finnish, Croatian, Hebrew, and Vietnamese.
Why didn’t my EasySnap work?
Sometimes Make it easy cannot produce a result. This can happen if the image or webpage cannot be read, the website you want to make easy blocks access, the document you upload is too large or complex, the content could be unsafe or misleading to simplify, or the question needs live, local, or personal information (like weather, events, or nearby places – Make it easy does not know where you are!).
When this happens, we’ll show an error message and link you to a page with more information.
Need More Help?
If you have questions, go to Settings > FAQ or tap Feedback to contact us!
