Feb. 16 DSP Brown Bag with Danielle Bragg

Talk title:

Designing an Animated ASL Writing System

by Danielle Bragg, Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering

Abstract:

Worldwide, about 70 million Deaf people use a sign language as their first language, and in the US and Canada, American Sign Language (ASL) is the primary language of about half a million people. Sign languages are movement-based languages, lacking a standard written form. Nonetheless, much of society and the technical world communicates through written text, excluding many people from full participation.

In this talk, I will present our work re-imagining written ASL, leveraging the animation capabilities of modern screens to improve both resemblance to live signing and learnability. I will discuss: 1) an online study of ASL users to understand whether introducing animation to ASL notation can be beneficial, 2) our approach to designing an animated reading/writing system, and 3) a design probe workshop to involve the Deaf community in the design.

Bio:

Danielle Bragg is a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, advised by Richard Ladner. Her research combines accessibility, human-computer interaction, and machine learning, and she takes a data-driven approach to tackling societal problems. Her recent projects include a sign language dictionary to facilitate looking up signs, a trainable sound detector for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and alternate English scripts that improve legibility for low-vision readers.

Accessibility info: