Design Challenge:
Interpreter

Project Overview

For this project I was tasked with designing an app that would help people in some way. Interpreter is a video recording based mobile app concept designed to aid people in learning American Sign Language. By recording an uploading a video of the user signing in ASL, this program is able to translate ASL into English. Additionally, with study mode, users are able to review saved signs.

Problem Statement

In order to better connect with those in the deaf community, ASL becomes a key part of communication. Students, hearing or deaf alike, may struggle in learning ASL given the lack of reliable online resources. Given the very expressive and spatial nature of sign language, online resources are few in number and lack much nuance in user interaction. Most learning with online sources act in a one-way direction, users can only search and translate an English word to its sign, but not the other way around. That is, a user, given an unknown sign, has no means of determining what the sign means. This mobile app has a video recording feature, in which if a video of a user signing is uploaded or recorded, the software is able to translate the signs into written word.

Users and Audience

This app was designed for users learning ASL, to help them find translations to signs that they do not recognize. With the study feature, users are also able to review signs that they have saved. That being said there is a wide range of people that would find use in this app. While the main purpose of this app is to help people learn sig, this app may also be helpful for people that already know ASL well, in the same way that people fluent in any language may still need to look up the meaning of a word.

Approach

The focus of this project was to design the interface of the app, and as such, conducting thorough user research was not practical in the context and limitations of the course. Instead I brainstormed based off of prior experience, having taken an ASL course taught by a deaf professor, in order to ideate who users might be and what they may go through while using this app.

User Persona

I based my user persona off of a college student that is actively taking an ASL class, motivated by wanting to be able to better communicate with a deaf friend.

Empathy Map

This empathy map describes the thoughts, actions, and feelings that my user persona may go through when learning ASL.

User Journey

This user journey visualises how the user might find the app, interact with it, and what kind of lasting impact it may have on the user.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

App Design

These are the initial opening and login screens. The logo is a still of the sign used for the word Interpreter, as in an ASL interpreter.

This is the home screen. I wanted the main function of the app to be the video recording program, so upon approval from the user to access the camera, this would be the first and easiest thing to navigate to. The user is able to hit the record button to film a video straight from the app, or select a video from their camera roll. From this screen the user can also search for a sign with the search bar. The user can also check their history with the button on the top left. The button on the bottom left indicates the study mode button. Users can also access their profile page from this screen.

These are search result screens. The screen to the left is the result when a user uploads a video and on the right is the result when the user searches for a sign with the search bar. Users can select the star symbol next to the title of the sign in order to save it in their study set. Additionally, users are able to select the “details” link to the bottom left of a result for more written information about a sign regarding context, region, or history. Users can also report a result with the link to the bottom right labeled “report a problem” if a user catches incorrect information.

These are the study mode screens. The study mode functions as flashcards that users can flip, with videos of the sign on one side and the written word on the other side.

This is the profile page. Users are able to edit details to their profile from here, this includes their hearing status as well as their location. This is also where users are able to upload their own personal signs, as a way to keep these personal signs separate from official ASL.

Roles and Responsibilities

   People eager to learn ASL often flock directly to the internet to learn the basics of sign language. This makes sense given the accessibility of the internet and the saturated resources across platforms. That being said, resources for learning ASL are often unreliable. From tiktok pages to online dictionaries, many of these resources are made by hearing people and spread misinformation. This is a massive issue as most of the time, the deaf community often goes overlooked when deaf users call out this misinformation.
   Additionally, ASL, though in its names sake is centered in the United States of America and Canada, there are still some regional differences in signs. Sign language manifests itself within the community and there is no official dictionary to define words.
   For these reasons, this app is focused on community. Users make a profile when signing up where they can designate their hearing status, proficiency in ASL, and their location. On their profile, users are able to upload videos of their own signs, whether it be sign names or unique signs for home grown ASL users. With this, a user can share their profile and their unique signs with people in their community directly. Additionally, users are able to report an issue on any sign listed in the system that they come across. If a user finds a sign with an incorrect english translation, the user can report it easily. Additionally, signs that vary from region to region, would be indicated as such under the additional information linked to every sign.

Reflections

I learned from this project that research, personas, and understanding your users, is very important in designing anything. Having a personal understanding of the motivations to learning ASL pushed me to design this best and integrate a lot of useful ideas. Though this is just a concept design, this app would solve very real issues surrounding the deaf community and nothing like it seems to exist just yet.
As for next steps, I might create more in between wireframes to be able to construct a prototype that would better capture how a user would interact with the app without all of the descriptions. There is a lot that this app does and there are some finer details to work out.