Usability Requirements For Deaf And Mute For Sign Language Translation System

Abstract

The research was conducted to find out usability requirements of deaf and mutes for better understanding of sign language so that they make consistent signs which could be used as input of a translation machine. The main objective was to find out the difficulty faced by deaf and mutes in learning a sign language. Another perspective covered in the research was the willingness of the participants to adopt new technologies. This study was carried out in three special education institutes of Pakistan. For requirement gathering different usability evaluation techniques were applied like think aloud, observation, interviews and questionnaire. Core problem of deaf and mutes was identified through a questionnaire which came out to be lack of understandability of sign language. To overcome this problem change in the teaching method and usage of multimedia screen was recommended. Screen customization was done for increasing the level of understandability of sign language. Better understandability of sign language means consistency in the signs made by all the students and that consistent sign bed will be used as input for the sign language translation machine.