How many stations can one account have?

As many as you add — they are bought individually, so a workshop with eight benches pays for eight stations and nothing more. Each has its own name and its own buttons.

Does every supervisor get every press?

Everyone connected does, and each notification names the station it came from. When somebody answers, the rest of the team sees who — which in a room where three supervisors cover twelve benches is the whole value of it.

Can buttons differ between benches?

Yes. Buttons belong to the station, so a packing bench and a woodwork bench can ask for entirely different things. Any connected supervisor changes them from their own phone.

Does the person at the bench need an account?

No — nothing to sign into, nothing to remember, and no personal detail stored. A station is connected once with a 12-digit code and then simply works. That also means a bench can be used by different people through the week without anybody logging in or out.

Is it loud enough for a workshop?

The station itself is visual — a large status line, not a sound. The notification lands on supervisors’ phones and behaves however those phones are set. If your floor is loud enough that a phone in a pocket is missed, that is worth testing during the free two weeks before committing.

For workshops and day services

Ask from the bench, without crossing the floor

A workshop is noisy, spread out, and full of reasons not to leave what you are doing. GoButtons puts a labelled button at each station so a request reaches every supervisor at once, and says where it came from.

If this is the situation, it is the right thing to read

Someone at a bench needs a supervisor — a jam, a check before the next step, a batch finished, or just a question. Getting attention means leaving the station, waving until somebody looks up, or waiting. Meanwhile a supervisor is at the far end of the room being asked something else.

Everybody involved is doing their job properly. The request simply has no route that does not cost somebody their place in what they were doing.

How it works on a floor

Each bench gets a station: a tablet showing a few very large, high-contrast buttons, labelled for the things that are actually asked for at that bench. A press notifies every supervisor connected, naming the station and the button — “Bench 3 · Machine jammed”.

The person who goes replies or clears it, and the others see who. That is the difference between two supervisors converging on Bench 3 and nobody going to Bench 7.

The person who pressed is not left guessing. The station shows that the message went, that it has been seen, and that somebody is coming — so the answer to “did anyone notice?” is on the screen in front of them rather than in the room behind them.

Label them for the work, not for the feeling

The workshops that get the most from this write buttons that name a task rather than a mood: Machine jammed, Ready for a check, Out of stock, Finished a batch. A specific button tells a supervisor what to bring with them, which is most of the time saved.

Keep one general button as well. There is always something the list did not anticipate, and a person who cannot find the right button often presses nothing at all.

It is the same button for everybody

In a supported-employment setting a request for help can feel like an admission, particularly when it means walking across a room in front of everyone. A button on the bench is the same action for every person at every bench, and it is over in a second.

Nothing about who pressed is recorded, because the station has no account and nobody signs in. What is stored is that a station asked for something, and who answered.

What GoButtons is not

It matters more here than it would for most software, because the thing it looks like from a distance is a thing that people's safety depends on. It is not that, and we would rather lose the sale than be misunderstood about it.

It is not machine safety equipment. It is not an emergency stop, an interlock, or any part of a guarding system, and it must never be relied on as one.
It is not a lone-worker alarm and does not meet any standard for one. There is no escalation, no timer, no fallback recipient and no monitoring centre.
It is not a first-aid or emergency call system. If somebody is hurt, the answer is whatever your procedure already says, and it is not a tablet.
It does not guarantee delivery or a response time. Phones are silenced, out of signal, and put down.
It is not a supervision record. Presses are stored, but nothing here is designed or warranted for evidencing staffing levels or response times.

What it is: a fast, dignified way to say something to people who have agreed to listen. If you need a guaranteed response, a monitored alarm or anything a clinician would sign off, you need a different product and probably a service contract.

Questions people ask

How many stations can one account have?: As many as you add — they are bought individually, so a workshop with eight benches pays for eight stations and nothing more. Each has its own name and its own buttons.
Does every supervisor get every press?: Everyone connected does, and each notification names the station it came from. When somebody answers, the rest of the team sees who — which in a room where three supervisors cover twelve benches is the whole value of it.
Can buttons differ between benches?: Yes. Buttons belong to the station, so a packing bench and a woodwork bench can ask for entirely different things. Any connected supervisor changes them from their own phone.
Does the person at the bench need an account?: No — nothing to sign into, nothing to remember, and no personal detail stored. A station is connected once with a 12-digit code and then simply works. That also means a bench can be used by different people through the week without anybody logging in or out.
Is it loud enough for a workshop?: The station itself is visual — a large status line, not a sound. The notification lands on supervisors’ phones and behaves however those phones are set. If your floor is loud enough that a phone in a pocket is missed, that is worth testing during the free two weeks before committing.

What it costs

$9.99 a month covers one station and one person besides you, after two weeks free with no card. More stations and more people are added individually, so a setup costs what it uses. The pricing page has the sums worked out, and what happens to the money if you stop.

If a payment ever fails, the buttons do not go dark. Every station keeps working and drops back to a single I need help button until it is sorted out. Someone's way of asking for help should not depend on whether a card expired.

Where this is up to

GoButtons is not in the app stores yet, so there is nothing to download from this page. It is being tested on real iOS and Android devices. This page will say so plainly on the day that changes — until then a store badge here would be a false claim.

If you want to know when it does, write to hello@gobuttons.app. It reaches a person, not a mailing list — there is nothing to sign up for here, and nothing to unsubscribe from.

Practical writing, product aside:

When asking stops — Requests get quieter long before anyone notices, and it reads as good news. What makes asking expensive, and what brings it back.
Suggesting a button — Most refusals are of the terms, not the help. What is usually being refused, and what can be offered instead.
Wording a button — Why “Assistance required” goes unpressed and “Come and chat” does not, and how to write the four or five that earn their place.
Deciding who goes — When three people could answer, often none does — and sometimes all three do. What actually fixes it.
Notification reliability — Nine reasons a phone stays silent, in the order they are likely, and what to test before anyone depends on it.
Low vision and tremor — The measurements we hold ourselves to, published in full, and why the usual accessibility minimums are far too small here.