This year international interest in the intensive care unit (ICU) has focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. One area that has received limited attention is the impact of an ICU admission on the individual; posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression are common in ICU survivors and patients described the most distressing experience being the inability to communicate. A discrepancy exists between the clinicians and patient perspective of the frequency and severity of symptoms patients experience while in ICU. We sort to better understand this problem and find a way to improve recognition of symptoms, then to address them as they occur and so attempt to diminish their consequence at follow-up. Sequential mixed methodologies were used in 3 development cycles to create and evaluate the tool reported in this paper—myICUvoice. The initial cycle revealed a spectrum of voicelessness described by patients. The second cycle demonstrated that myICUvoice improved the ability of patients unable to phonate, to communicate. It is now freely available to download for use in any ICU. It has also been used to provide a novel method for prospectively recording an otherwise unattainable insight into patient experience. The third cycle revealed that when patients could talk, nurses did not intuitively use myICUvoice’s self-reporting survey function. Patients had requested this use to enhance clinicians understanding of otherwise under-reported patient symptoms. It is possible that by improving our understanding of the symptoms patients experience and therefore provide treatments when needed, post-ICU morbidity may be reduced.