Innovative technology for universal communication designed to involve the (hearing) challenged
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This document appears to be a presentation on accessibility and communication challenges for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It discusses the closed cultural society of the deaf community and how communication works differently for those without hearing. Misunderstandings can occur for both hearing and deaf individuals without visual cues like facial expressions and gestures. True understanding only happens when all parties are emotionally involved. Different situations require different approaches depending on the type and degree of hearing loss for an individual. Hearing loss impacts many areas of life.
Innovative technology for universal communication designed to involve the (hearing) challenged
- 2. ACCENT ON ACCESSIBILITY [email protected] Mira Georgieva
- 3. This talk will not include technical tweaks and secrets. No developers were harmed during the make of this presentaGon. (MAYBE) V I E W E R ’S A D V I S O R Y
- 4. I work with this guy
- 5. A. Currently available technology B. The world of the deaf/hard of hearing C. Business insights D. PracGcal examples E. WaveAmp Open Source F. Wrap up (if we have Gme)
- 6. RIGHT / DERECHO LEFT / IZQUIERDA GUIDE ME TO THE BOTTLE OF WATER GUÍA ME A LA BOTELLA DE AGUA
- 7. Advance resides in mutual collaboraGon. without the help of others, people who need guidance to complete basic tasks, would not make it.
- 8. Before I started working on this project, I knew nothing about the challenges I had to address. But as I went on and on, I realized that I do not have to do much. My business already provides accessibility features. They are simply not presented as such… Your business provides accessibility features. Your PBX, your hardware, your so[ware – they provide accessibility features.
- 9. THESE BREAKTHROUGHS TRANSFORM THE LIVES OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD. ACTUALLY, THEY TRANSFORM ALL OF US AND ALL OF OUR LIVES ENTIRELY.
- 10. ASLAN Meet ASLAN! • ASLAN stands for Antwerp's Sign Language ActuaGng Node • ASLAN is an AutomaGc Sign Language Interpreter • ASLAN’s body is 3D printed! • Used during lectures and presentaGons in class rooms …or even during presentaGons like this one
- 11. Brain-to-text • The paGents read sample text aloud during the study • machine learning algorithms extract the most likely word sequence from the signals • automaGc speech-‐to-‐text methods create the text output • word error rates – as low as 25% • The Brain-‐to-‐Text system might lead to a speech-‐communicaGon method for locked-‐in (unable to communicate) paGents.
- 13. Siri | Cortana | Google Now
- 14. • Imagine all this combined. • Now imagine all this combined with your knowledge, with your experience, with your so[ware, with your hardware. • You would think that all this knowledge results in evolved communicaGon. • You would think that all this changes the way we communicate. It makes the way we communicate look a bit outdated, doesn’t it? • You would think that we should be able to communicate without boundaries, deaf, blind, young, old, smart, silly, no mafer the language, no mafer the culture. Yes, but no. And that is the reason I am here today.
- 15. WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF DEAF Know what you are gehng involved into
- 16. The world is built around the hearing and the seeing, it is not enGrely comfortable for people with challenges. In order to understand, we would need to relate to the actual pracGcal problem. Did I say a PROBLEM? There are some upsides (concentraGon, relax) along the downsides (gates changing, crosswalks)!
- 17. DEAFNESS IS NOT A PROBLEM closed fully-‐funcGonal cultural society enGrely separate from the closed society of the hearing DEAF / HARD OF HEARING HEARING 1
- 18. MISUNDERSTANDINGS OCCURING WITH BOTH HEARING AND DEAF CONFUSION OF THE TEXT MESSAGE we guess the tone, the mood, the enGre meaning INTONATION defines the manner of the message and is visually accompanied by different facial expressions and gestures to ease and ensure that the message is actually processed. EMOTION emoGon cannot be transmifed with email or text in its enGrety. CAPS LOCK and punctuaGon are o[en used to emphasize
- 19. You may see that even without any physical challenges and with all the means of communicaGon, we are sPll not enPrely able to understand each other.
- 20. COMMUNICATION ONLY HAPPENS IF WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER The main difference between non-‐visual communicaGon (wrifen and telephone) and visual (f2f and video) is that the visual requires us to be EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED.
- 21. DIFFERENT SITUATIONS REQUIRE DIFFERENT APPROACH 2 HARD OF HEARING DEAF DEAF AND MUTE …and a variety of mixes: hearing, mute, deaf, hard of hearing…
- 22. HEARING LOSS AFFECTS communicaGon, cogniGon, behavior, social-‐emoGonal development, academic outcomes, vocaGonal opportuniGes. DEAF PEOPLE CAN DO ANYTHING…EXCEPT HEAR 3
- 23. The answer is: Yes …and no. Are you able to choose whether to adopt accessibility features?
- 24. Accessibility features are not only applicable as such, they are pretty much the future of communication. • There is no obligatory standard yet that regulates how much of accessible our stuff should be. • You are sGll free to decide whether you would adopt accessibility features. But are you really… • Based on the staGsGcs, I conclude that if you do not adopt at least parGally some accessibility features, you might be sooner or later running out of business.
- 25. 0,2% COLOMBIAN POPULATION IS DEAF = AT LEAST 1 DEAF FRIEND ON FACEBOOK 1 BILLION AFFECTED BY NOISE POLLUTION 5% OF THE WORLD POPULATION 360 MILLION PEOPLE HEARING-‐CHALLENGED
- 26. ARE WE ALL GOING DEAF ?
- 27. WHY YOU WANT YOUR APPS/SERVICES/PRODUCTION ACCESSIBLE
- 28. WHY YOU WANT THEIR APPS/SERVICES/PRODUCTION ACCESSIBLE OTHERS DON’T
- 29. It could be that they do not relate to the challenges (their business is blooming and they do not need this extra customer flow). BUT ACCESSIBILITY IS BECOMING A REQUIREMENT AND NOT A NECESSITY Although not legally obligatory, accessibility is pushed by large manufacturers (such as Apple for example) and looks like that some steps towards it becoming a standard are made.
- 30. Others might believe that there is no money in accessibility (or it is too large of a hassle to consider it) BUT ACCESSIBILITY CAN BE FUNDED 1) government/union funding, 2) crowdfunding of part of your product/project (think social and viral, think your exisGng clients and channel partners), 3) collaboraGons with other players on the market, 4) verGcals and horizontals, 5) cross-‐pollinaGon with other products, services and technology.
- 31. Others may think that it is a very hard market BUT ACCESSIBILITY WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH A NOBLE RECURRING PAYABLE AND PATIENT USER STREAM We are all very aware how much it costs to have a limited choice and what the value of anything that provides improved quality of living is.
- 32. Others might believe that there is no business value to accessibility ACCESSIBILITY IS HIGHLY RESPECTED, WELL ACCEPTED AND WILL INCREASE YOUR BUSINESS AWARENESS The most sustainable business is the business with social value. There are many business examples here involved with social anything, from social funding, social acGviGes, to social media itself.
- 33. PROVDE ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES …WITHOUT DOING MUCH
- 34. 1. DOES IT SERVE A PURPOSE 2. RECOGNIZE EXISTING FEATURES 3. PRIORITIZE ADDITIONAL FEATURES FOR BROADER AUDIENCE 4. RESEARCH CompeGGon is an outdated unsustainable concept. 5. LEGAL MATTERS / PATENTS (the only serious issue) 6. FUNDING / DEVELOPMENT TIME CONTRIBUTION Reach out to other companies 7. OPEN SOURCE (sensiGve topic) 8. PROPOSITIONS NOT SOLUTIONS No one needs fixing! 9. RAISE AWARENESS THE LAZY ACCESSIBILITY GUIDE TO CHANGING THE WORLD
- 35. CURRENT STATE OF THE ACCESSIBILITY WORLD meh.
- 36. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ACCESS TO SERVICES
- 37. Imagine that you are deaf and your credit card got stolen. You want to contact your bank to block the card. TOO MANY COUNTRIES DO NOT ENFORCE ACCESSIBILITY ACCESS TO EXTREMELY IMPORTANT SERVICES. So all you can do is choose one of the following opGons…
- 38. WHO WANTS … THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH
- 39. DEAF USER DEAF USER HEARING USER DEAF AGENT DEAF AGENT HEARING AGENT YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US…. …and a variety of hearing, mute, deaf, hard of hearing…
- 40. THERE IS NO ONE PERFECT SOLUTION
- 41. • USE WIDEBAND AUDIO extends the frequency range for the audio signals • USE NOISE REDUCTION filtering unwanted noises – removing white and surrounding noises • USE EQUALIZER already deliver some frequency modificaGon to correct the “bad” frequencies and to deliver conGnual sound Nopes: 1) non-‐customizable – they opGmize to the standard hearing limits, 2) do not take into consideraGon both years HARD OF HEARING THE SMALL ACCESSIBILITY GUIDE TO CHANGING THE WORLD
- 42. WHAT CAN WE DO BETTER
- 43. WHAT CAN WE DO BETTER ADVANCED EQUALIZER / Wave Amplifier MODIFIES db AND Hz for opGmal hearing STANDARD ALGORITHMS CAN BE APPLIED DIRECTLY TO THE SERVER
- 44. THIS IS HOW NORMAL SPEECH SOUNDS LIKE
- 45. THIS IS HOW HEARING LOSS SOUNDS LIKE
- 46. THIS IS WHAT THE APPLICATION DOES FOR THE HARD OF HEARING
- 47. LOAD AN EXISTING AUDIOGRAM / START THE TEST TO CREATE ONE
- 48. MILD HEARING LOSS AUDIOGRAM
- 49. STANDARD PLAYBACK VS AMPLIFIED
- 50. • VIDEO FEATURES (video call center) support video calls / detect incoming video visual IVRs video queues (not yet supported?) • CHAT • CHAT + VIDEO THE SMALL ACCESSIBILITY GUIDE TO CHANGING THE WORLD DEAF USER DEAF AGENT
- 51. • CAPTIONED SERVICES VOICE TO TEXT PHONES WITH CAPTIONS • VRS (INTERPRETER) DEAF USER HEARING AGENT THE SMALL ACCESSIBILITY GUIDE TO CHANGING THE WORLD
- 52. WHAT CAN WE DO BETTER • VIDEO WIDER CONTROL OVER THE CAMERA, ZOOM HIGH FPS AND HIGH RESOLUTION EMOTION DETECTION (FACIAL EXPRESSIONS/TONE) AUTOMATIC SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER ?
- 53. YOU ?
- 54. ACCENT ON ACCESSIBILITY [email protected] Mira Georgieva