Deaf-Mute Communication – Part II: Background Research

This part concludes the project report for the project “Deaf-Mute Communication”. Previous posts here: Part I, Part III.

Background Research

Sign Language

Just like spoken languages, sign language is built upon certain rules of grammar, and can also be varied in terms of dialects. But unlike spoken languages, dialects in sign language are not as comprehensible between people using related dialects. For example, British sign language is almost unintelligible for users of American sign language. On the other hand, American sign language has a similarity of 60% to modern French sign language, which demonstrates the difference in relationship and affinity between different sign languages and the equivalent spoken languages.

Moreover, what should be emphasized in this context is that many signs are very similar to each other, which can make the distinction hard to perceive. Examples of similar signs in American sign language are:

• chocolate, church, and computer
• soft and want
• now and today

Technology

To bridge the communication gap between deaf-mute people and the people in their surroundings, there are some current methods put in use. Below is presented some of the technologies that are used to carry out these methods together with technologies with the potential of being used in future communication solutions.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is an umbrella term for all types of communication enhancing methods used by people (except oral communication) to express themselves to others. This includes body language and facial expressions. AAC  is further categorized in Unaided communication systems, where the user’s body is relied on for communication, and Aided communication systems, where devices ranging from pencils to computers that produce voice output are utilized in addition to the user’s body.

Different kinds of relay services are utilized to help deaf-mute people communicate with hearing people. Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and Video Relay Service (VRS) are two similar services, where VRI is used for communication between people at the same location, and VRS is used to interpret messages between people at different locations. Both services rely on Internet and video communications technology, since the interpreters are never located at the same location as the people using the service. Text Relay Service (TRS) is similar to VRS, with the difference that the output to the person with hearing impairments is text instead of video. Keyboards or special assistive devices are used to send text messages to standard telephones via the telephone line. IP Relay Services are web-based, similar to chats, and do not rely on telephones at all. Thus, callers have to manually supply the operators with their location information during situation such as making emergency calls.

The Leap Motion is a sensor device that monitors hand and finger motion in order to use these as input to a computer, e.g. to control different kinds of interfaces. The device was initially created to overcome the cumbersome process of 3D modelling with mouse and keyboard as input devices, but is currently used within a large area of use, such as controlling computer games, web browsers and virtual musical instruments. Recent attempts have also been made to use the Leap Motion as a gesture-based sign translator for online chat applications.

The Kinect is also a motion sensing device, but unlike Leap Motion, Kinect monitors full-body motion. Usually the sensor device is positioned on top of a monitor, which displays the interface of whatever is being controlled with the sensor device. Recent efforts have been made to build a sign language to text/text to sign language translator using the Kinect for sign language input.

Machine translation is a subfield of computational linguistics that investigates how to translate text or speech from one natural language to another. Great efforts are currently being put into making results produced through machine translation more accurate. Corpus linguistics and statistical techniques are utilized to be able to recognize whole phrases of text or speech instead of the single words by themselves.

Interview

We conducted an interview with a man who is hard of hearing and who uses American sign language. The questions were focused on which means of communication that deaf-mute people utilize when communicating with hearing people or with people who do not know sign language. We learned that assistive tools such as pen and paper, computers and text relay services were used to lower the communication threshold. The conclusion was that although the mentioned tools are slow to use, they are valuable and better than nothing.

Home Design for Elderly* People

* After reading articles like this I am generally more careful to not label people according to their age, but for the sake of simplifying the use of language for this assignment I chose to use the word “elderly” to describe people of higher age with some sort of age-related impairment.

Up until now, we have been discussing three main categories of age-related impairments; cognitive impairments, perceptual impairments, and physical impairments. In order to be able to design homes for elderly people that will support them during different stages of the aging process, designers must take these categories of impairments into consideration. Only then will the the designs reflect the user’s needs and truly offset the effects of their conditions.

Below I will suggest different possible solutions that could be incorporated into a flat design (flat as in apartment, not the current hype). I will categorize them according to the categories of impairment previously mentioned.

Cognitive problems

It is not uncommon that the daily life of elderly people is troubled by a weakened state of their cognitive abilities. Dementia is an example of a cognitive problem affecting some elderly people, and common symptoms are memory loss, communication issues and mood changes. The symptoms may cause that elderly people with this condition have a hard time finding what they are looking for in their home, or they could be confused by suddenly changing settings in their home while moving around, or they could even be unmotivated to engage in activity if that implies too much of an effort. Some proactive measures to help elderly people cope with these symptoms are to design spaces according to their purpose and to communicate that purpose distinctively. An example of a design flaw in this case would be to place to similar doors next to each other, one being the entry to the washroom and the other being the closet. Likewise, living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms should be designed purposefully where details are clear and the chance of miscommunication is minimal. In this case, shape and contrast of objects and details in different rooms are important factors to consider to make the design more communicative.

Perceptual problems

Human perception is also something that most often becomes weaker as we age, due to the gradual weakened state of our senses. Weakened eye-sight and hearing are common issues that will be covered here, but also the weakened state of taste and smell could be taken into consideration when designing possible solutions in this context. First and foremost, people with limited eye-sight or hearing are most likely best supported in static environments where visual and auditory noise is minimal. In other words, one of the first things that should be taken into consideration is whether or not the construction of the flat can resist dynamic visual and auditory conditions. Examples of these conditions are flashing lights from the street, large variations in noise due to the location of the home, or rapid weather changes. Evident solutions to these issues are window blinds and sound-reducing isolation, but may be varied according to the demands that different settings imply.

A general rule in design is to reduce clutter as much as possible, and this applies, to a very large extent, also when designing for visual and auditory impairments. Examples of cluttered visual designs are button interfaces with too many similar buttons, or flooring with different texture and luster, which make the attributes of the floor surface hard to distinguish. Examples of cluttered auditory designs are audio cues from different electronic appliances that blend in to current background noise and thus are not distinctive enough to be heard. Regardless of visual or auditory design, it is important to consider the intensity of whatever this design is communicating. The intensity of the communicative signal should be at an adequate level and the contrast between the signal and the background should be sufficiently distinctive. As a proactive measure, all possible distractions should also be counteracted, for example by covering the home with matte surfaces to avoid distracting glares or by designing an open planning for the home to allow audio cues to travel easier and thus be more resounding.

Physical problems

Age implies physical change, which does not necessarily have to be an inhibiting factor to daily activity. At least not if living in an environment that addresses these physical changes. A quite common and unfortunate consequence of physical change among elderly people is the increased risk of falling accidents. Proactive measures against these accidents should therefore be included in all designs of homes for elderly people. Examples of appropriate measures are non-slip floors in washrooms, consistent floor surfaces to avoid misinterpretation (with special consideration to the contrast in color and covering texture), exclusion of possible obstacles such as carpets or table legs, exclusion of thresholds, and the addition of handrails in appropriate places as balancing support.

Although having physical issues that inhibits mobility, elderly people should be enabled and encouraged to move freely in their own homes and to be independent in their daily activities to the largest possible extent. Designs that would allow this include lowered storage space such as drawers and cupboards at appropriate heights, handrails as previously mentioned, seating devices for leg rest during showers and cooking or similar, and increased size of door frames and increased height of tables for easier access with wheelchairs. A good example of the latter is the Inclusive Table suggested by Timlin and Rysenbry (2010) that is designed to accommodate wheelchairs while still being aesthetically pleasing (see image below). The table is high enough for wheelchair users to come close enough to be able to eat without spilling, it has rounded edges to be more tactile and to lower impact in the event of someone falling into it, and also the table surface is contrasted to its edges to better communicate the limits of the surface area.

The Inclusive Table (Timlin & Rysenbry, 2010) is a supportive aid mainly for wheelchair users and people with visual impairments.

Final words

A home for elderly people should strongly correlate to the current needs of the residents, which puts further weight on a need-driven Universal Design process. It is essential that design in a context like this is purposeful and not solely functional, seeing that function is useless without a purpose. And the purpose we are (or should be) designing for is to enhance life quality. After all, our aim is not to help people survive, but to support them in living.

References

Dvorsky, T. & Pettipas, J. (2007) Elder-Friendly Design Interventions: Acute Care Hospitals Can Learn from Long-Term Care Residences. Available here: http://www.informedesign.org/_news/aug_v02-p.pdf

Fozard, J. L. et al. (1993) Sensory And Perceptual Considerations In Designing Environments For The Elderly. Available here: http://www.homemods.org/resources/life-span/sensory.shtml

Grant-Savela, S. Living Rooms & Social Spaces. Available at: https://www4.uwm.edu/dementiadesigninfo/data/white_papers/Living%20Rooms%20and%20Social%20Spaces.pdf

Timlin, G. & Rysenbry, N. (2010) Design for Dementia: Improving dining and bedroom environments in care homes. Available at: http://www.hhc.rca.ac.uk/CMS/files/DESIGN_FOR_DEMENTIA%20_w.pdf

All references accessed as late as October 22, 2013.

Complying With Users’ Needs: A Universal Design Process

Something that most designers already know is that the user is not always right. In fact, users do not even know what the best solution for them would be at all times. Product design, as seen from the user’s perspective, is generally not always need-driven but influenced by many other aspects that influence preference, such as aesthetics, functionality and budget. But when designing for special needs, the designer is faced with a challenge, which is to truly understand its user. Not to convince the user about anything, but to comply with the user’s needs. When designing for special needs, the user is always right and great effort must be put into eliciting meaningful requirements in order to create meaningful design.

If putting this into a context of a Universal Design process, I favor the idea of that the designer should have an “ethnographic attitude” when attempting to understand the user. This suggests a close relationship between the designer and the user and is also essential in eliciting meaningful requirements. Ensuring this kind of attitude would also ensure the elimination of any preconceptions that the designer may have had about the user and that may have invalidated the end result.

When eliciting requirements and creating design concepts, I believe that a key point is iteration. The designer should repeatedly give feedback to the user about their gained understanding and experience of the user’s needs in order to be able to make revisions to these if anything turns out to be misapprehended. During this phase I can see a particular advantage in making note of any certain frames of reference (physical, cultural, cognitive, etc.) that might be utilized by the user in everyday activities. This may lead to the understanding that design concepts for example cannot incorporate segments of everyday language, cannot lack (or include) the incorporation of some human senses or combinations of these, can or cannot be abstracted to a certain degree (for example what level of iconicity or symbolism can our design concepts have? [1]), etc. This kind of understanding should result in more accurate design concepts.

Finally, during the last stages of a Universal Design process, designers should consider whether or not technology adds any value to the final design. If it does, let the (need-driven) design decide what kind of technology that would be, rather than allowing the technology to modify the design. If it does not, let us consider what other aids or methods we could use to address the needs of the user. After all, technology is very valuable when it does fulfill a purpose. Otherwise, it is just looking to fill a void in an already crowded space.

1. “Pictograms, Icons and Symbols” http://www.tiresias.org/research/guidelines/pictograms.htm

Design for Special Needs

I believe it makes sense to make design need-driven when designing for a certain target group. Designs created according to assumptions about certain target groups risk becoming redundant and solving problems that do not exist. Thus, I would be for a change in terminology by dissolving “Design for Elderly” and instead including designs that address age-related needs in the more general category “Design for Special Needs”. By using this kind of terminology we can address the special requirements that are in fact implied by old age, and at the same time acknowledge that these requirements do not apply to all elderly people.

My personal view on Universal Design is that it is a near-utopian vision of how our environment could be constructed. Within that utopia, Design for Special Needs is not separated from Universal Design, but all designs are meaningful and usable for everyone. But according to how we construct our environment today, tools for special needs are sometimes add-ons to the environment and extensions to Universal Design, rather than part of them both. Accordingly, my view on Design for Special Needs is that it is neither separate from Universal Design nor a subcategory of it, but rather an independent and complementary category to Universal Design. Most designs that are aimed towards special needs most likely fulfill the criteria of Universal Design as well, but some designs are too specialized to be usable for anyone without special needs, such as cognition-, perception- and motor-enhancing designs. This concept is illustrated in the diagram below.

Design for Special Needs can be seen as a complementary category to Universal Design, rather than as a part of it.

As a final note, I would like to emphasize that this is merely my interpretation of how Design for Special Needs is differentiated from Universal Design today. In optimal conditions, Universal Design is conducted in a way that no person is excluded, which would also eliminate the need of additional and complementary designs that target specific groups of people (i.e. the small circle would become a part of the large circle).

Principles and Practices

This subject is somewhat connected to the reflections we made regarding how to ensure ethical thinking within Universal Design (UD) and Disability Research. My personal conclusion on that topic was that design guidelines would at least facilitate ethical thinking within these areas, if not ensuring it. After getting to know about formalized principles and practices within UD, I came to realize that they are quite similar to the design guidelines I reflected upon previously. And I do like the idea of having principles and practices to guide the process of UD, since this is a way of ensuring a certain level of design quality. Moreover, principles and practices address the issues of stigmatization and normality, by minimizing the former and broadening the latter.

Essentially, UD is about changing the environment we live in to make it usable by all humans. Molly Follette Story explained this quite well in the article Maximizing Usability: The Principles of Universal Design when describing different ways of enhancing an individual’s capabilities. By changing the environment, as opposed to changing the individual or providing the individual with tools, the individual will become as autonomous as possible without having to change daily routines. And although it might not always be feasible to change the environment, principles and practices are design frameworks that will at least bring designers into the proper mindset of conducting UD in an optimal manner, provided that the principles and practices are standardized and communicated to designers doing UD throughout the world. I do however have one point of criticism to this article, and that is how the author describes the benefits of UD from a supplier-consumer perspective: “The most significant benefit to the proliferation of universal design practice is that all consumers will have more products to choose from that are more usable, more readily available, and more affordable.” In my opinion, the most significant benefit to the proliferation of UD is that less people are excluded from society by changing the environment to be suitable for all. How this affects attributes regarding usable products on the market is a secondary result.

Finally, a small remark to the suggested process of UD by Sheryl Burgstahler in the article Universal Design: Process Principles and Applications. Step 2 in the process is about describing the overall population that will use the service being designed. I generally prefer the idea of non-exluding design over inclusive design, and I believe that this step focuses more on including people than not excluding anyone. But then again, some products or services might be specialized to a certain extent that they are just not suitable for everyone. And that raises the question of whether or not we can have only one set of standardized principles and practices for UD, or if we need several sets depending on the aim and purpose of our design.

Design, Technology and Need

When deciding what kind of technology we need, a good starting point is to achieve an adequate understanding of the needs of the end-users. This might seem like something very obvious, but I wonder if we do not oversee this fundamental aspect within our focused scope of design once in a while. Are we designing to enable or to support? This is a question designers should be asking themselves during the initial stages of a design process, and it cannot be answered without proper user research. If our aim is to design true support for people who are already enabled to live their daily lives and fulfill their daily needs, but might need support to do it more efficiently, then the solution should be easily accomplished in collaboration with the end-users. And it seems to me as a straight-forward design process, since the focus is on enhancing current strengths among the end-users, instead of creating solutions to cover up for their weaknesses. In other words, the points of improvement are visible. We do not have to look further than to the end-users themselves to learn what the properties of the solution should be.

Moreover, assuming that a simple solution is equivalent to a low-tech solution, the risk of implementing such a solution is that it might be oversimplified and therefore also misused. Either the solution is too generic to afford its use within only one category, or it might be simplified to the point where it is not communicative anymore, i.e. that it does not afford its use at all. Likewise, a high-tech solution could be oversimplified and thus easily be (unintentionally) misused. But, in contrast, a high-tech solution is more prone to target a much more specific group of users (e.g. technically skilled). However, this might not be a risk but rather a deliberate choice during circumstances of designing for very special needs.

Overthrowing Self-Stigma

The first thing that comes into mind when thinking about stigmatization is the social constructs that causes stigma among the people who are considered to be minorities in society, for example normative design and prejudice. A society designed for the general public is often taken for granted, and prejudice exists not only among people considered as normal. To minimize stigmatization and broaden the area of normality, one of the first steps should be to overthrow self-stigmatization among the people belonging to certain minorities. Normative societies are very inviting to citizens who hold the appropriate set of attributes, but may be excluding for those who do not. And the exclusion is partially an active response by the minority itself to the society they live in, due to sharing the same prejudice that may or may not exist within the society.

Assuming that is how the matter stands, one way of overthrowing self-stigma among minorities is to inform about the certain condition (whatever it may be), and doing so, first and foremost, to people who are sharing the same attributes. I believe it is important to normalize attributes that are generally and wrongfully perceived as abnormal, in an attempt to increase the self-esteem among the people sharing these attributes. Once that is done, the task of informing the general public will be a much easier task. It is not a matter of convincing – rather it is a matter of including the excluded. If the minority is agreeing to exclude themselves and become outsiders per definition, how should the majority ever be able to perceive them as belonging to the same group as themselves, or as ‘insiders’? This matter has been raised many times before. The only difference is that those discussions focused on sexuality, religious beliefs, and ethnicity, among other things.

Finally, yes, this is a matter of design. It is a matter of interaction design. More specifically, the interaction between humans – the one attribute that is shared by us all.

Facilitating Ethical Thinking in Disability Research and Universal Design

In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) we approach design from an angle that takes into consideration the people we design for, the activities they normally do, the certain context within which they perform the activities, and the certain technology they use to fulfill their tasks. This approach is most successful when complemented with a set of pre-defined design guidelines.

Given the similar nature of Universal Design (UD) and HCI, I believe that design guidelines can be incorporated also within UD. This would be one way of, maybe not ensuring, but at least facilitating ethical thinking in disability research and UD. Seeing that the purpose of design guidelines is to direct the designer towards a certain preferred outcome, it would seem appropriate to create ethical design guidelines for non-excluding design. The guidelines may be used as a ‘best-pratice‘ of designing ethically, and may also be used in an educational context by creating more responsible minds among designers and researchers already at an early stage.

If talking in terms of ensuring ethical thinking, I believe this is a much more difficult task to fulfill that may or may not require strict regulations on the background of designers and researchers. This could be accomplished by licensing disability researchers and designers doing UD. However, this approach enforces responsible thinking upon the practitioners. Would that be ethical?

Walk in my shoes

The walk

My shoes have thin soles, so I could feel the rills quite well. I could even feel if I was walking along or across them. During winter time I could however have problems feeling the rills, depending on how much snow is laying on the ground and what kind of snow it is. Powder snow is obviously easier penetrated than more dense snow. Thicker soles will of course weaken your ability to feel the rills, but if there is a lot of dense snow laying above the rills it doesn’t matter what kind of soles you have. You wouldn’t be able to feel them anyway.

I did not walk far (only a couple of meters) before I felt unsafe, since I couldn’t be sure how close I was to the people walking towards me. Before opening my eyes I felt that I was closer to people or other objects than I actually was. By following the rills, I was fairly sure of that I was not walking into any walls or any other fixed objects along the way, but further down the street (after the experiment) I noticed that the rills were actually giving me a false sense of safety and that I could have hurt myself if trusting them completely (see picture below).

Street rills cannot be blindly trusted.

If a blind person encounters a completely blocked sidewalk, that person would probably be very confused and maybe try to walk around the blocking. But by doing so the person would not only risk being completely lost (given all the new navigational cues in its surroundings), but also risk its own life if walking out on the road where there is no pedestrian crossing in an attempt to walk around the blocking. 

A possible solution to this would be to place audio cues at the nearest pedestrian crossings at each direction from the blocking, signaling to the blind person to choose another route, and to possibly even guide the person along the alternative route with additional audio cues.

The dark room

I did this exercise with my eyes closed in order to lose all of my visual cues. Regarding perceiving things around me, I could not perceive much without reaching out to objects with my hands. There were no audio cues that could help me guide myself in the room. The only thing I could experiencing by standing there was the sound of the ventilator in the ceiling, which was no aid to me at all.

I could make sure where the walls were only by reaching out and touch them. The texture of the walls (bricks) also helped me distinguish the walls from the door (wood).  Since I was inside a toilet for disabled, the toilet had a sidebar next to it. The sidebar made it easier for me to locate the toilet, since it reaches out quite far from the wall in the height of my waist. If I would have reached out for the toilet itself I would have had to bend down and also be risking to bang my legs while looking for it. If I would have lost orientation I could probably relocate it by reaching out for the sidebar again. I would have a problem, though, if the sidebar was raised up against the wall. In that case I would have to reach out for the toilet itself. A cain would make that task easier for me. If I recently flushed the toilet, the sound from the water pipes might have helped me locate it as well.