Browsing by Author "Glaser, Meryl"

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    Deaf telephony: community-based co-design
    (Wiley, 2011) Blake, Edwin H.; Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl; Freudenthal, Adinda
    The process of community-based co-design is one that explores various solution configurations in a multi-dimensional design space whose axes are the different dimensions of requirements and the various dimensions of designer skills and technological capabilities. The bits of this space that one can ‘see’ are determined by one's knowledge of the user needs and one's own skills. Co-design is a way of exploring that space in a way that alleviates the myopia of one's own viewpoint and bias. As one traverses this space one traces a trajectory according to one’s skills and learning and according to the users’ expressed requirements and their learning.
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    Deaf telephony: community-based co-design (case study)
    (Wiley, 2011) Blake, Edwin H.; Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl; Freudenthal, Adinda
    The process of community-based co-design is one that explores various solution configurations in a multi-dimensional design space whose axes are the different dimensions of requirements and the various dimensions of designer skills and technological capabilities. The bits of this space that one can ‘see’ are determined by one's knowledge of the user needs and one's own skills. Co-design is a way of exploring that space in a way that alleviates the myopia of one's own viewpoint and bias. As one traverses this space one traces a trajectory according to one’s skills and learning and according to the users’ expressed requirements and their learning.
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    Exploration of Deaf people’s health information sources and techniques for information delivery in Cape Town: A qualitative study for the design and development of a mobile health application
    (JMIR Publications, 2016) Chininthorn, Prangnat; Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David; Diehl, Jan Carel
    BACKGROUND: Many cultural and linguistic Deaf people in South Africa face disparity when accessing health information because of social and language barriers. The number of certified South African Sign Language interpreters (SASLIs) is also insufficient to meet the demand of the Deaf population in the country. Our research team, in collaboration with the Deaf communities in Cape Town, devised a mobile health app called SignSupport to bridge the communication gaps in health care contexts. We consequently plan to extend our work with a Health Knowledge Transfer System (HKTS) to provide Deaf people with accessible, understandable, and accurate health information. We conducted an explorative study to prepare the groundwork for the design and development of the system. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the current modes of health information distributed to Deaf people in Cape Town, identify the health information sources Deaf people prefer and their reasons, and define effective techniques for delivering understandable information to generate the groundwork for the mobile health app development with and for Deaf people. METHODS: A qualitative methodology using semistructured interviews with sensitizing tools was used in a community-based codesign setting. Twenty-three Deaf people and 10 health professionals participated in this study. Inductive and deductive coding was used for the analysis. RESULTS: Deaf people currently have access to 4 modes of health information distribution through: Deaf and other relevant organizations, hearing health professionals, personal interactions, and the mass media. Their preferred and accessible sources are those delivering information in signed language and with communication techniques that match Deaf people’s communication needs. Accessible and accurate health information can be delivered to Deaf people by 3 effective techniques: using signed language including its dialects, through health drama with its combined techniques, and accompanying the information with pictures in combination with simple text descriptions. CONCLUSIONS: We can apply the knowledge gained from this exploration to build the groundwork of the mobile health information system. We see an opportunity to design an HKTS to assist the information delivery during the patient-health professional interactions in primary health care settings. Deaf people want to understand the information relevant to their diagnosed disease and its self-management. The 3 identified effective techniques will be applied to deliver health information through the mobile health app.
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    Improving usability and correctness of a mobile tool to help a Deaf person with pharmaceutical instruction
    (ACM, 2013) Motlhabi, Michael B.; Tucker, William David; Parker, Mariam B.; Glaser, Meryl
    The computing for development community knows how to build user interfaces using qualitative methods for text il- literate users, especially on mobile devices. However, lit- tle work has been done speci cally targeting Deaf users in developing regions who cannot access voice or text. This paper describes a multi-disciplinary collaboration towards iterative development of a mobile communication tool to support a Deaf person in understanding usage directions for medication dispensed at a pharmacy. We are improv- ing usability and correctness of the user interface. The tool translates medicine instruction given in English text to Sign Language videos, which are relayed to a Deaf user on a mo- bile phone. Communication between pharmacists and Deaf patients were studied to extract relevant exchanges between the two users. We incorporated the common elements of these dialogues to represent content in a veri able manner to ensure that the mobile tool relays the correct informa- tion to the Deaf user. Instructions are made available for a Deaf patient in signed language videos on a mobile device. A pharmacy setup was created to conduct trials of the tool with groups of end users, in order to collect usability data with recorded participant observation, questionnaires and focus group discussions. Subsequently, pre-recorded sign language videos, stored on a phone's memory card, were tested for correctness. Results of these two activities are presented and discussed in this paper.
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    Mobile Communication Tools for a South African Deaf patient in a pharmacy context
    (IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2012) Chininthorn, Prangnat; Glaser, Meryl; Freudenthal, Adinda; Tucker, William David
    This paper presents a case for iterative community-based co-design to facilitate the emergence of an innovative mobile system to address a potentially life-threatening scenario for Deaf people in South Africa. For Deaf people that communicate in South African Sign Language, miscommunication due to language barriers, under-education, under-employment and physiological deafness can lead to a potentially dangerous therapeutic outcome when Deaf people potentially misunderstand a pharmacist's instructions on how to take prescribed medicine. The design for a mobile communication aid to address this problem emerged from iterative cycles of action research performed with a local Deaf community that also involved pharmacists and a multi-disciplinary research team. Conventional user-centred design techniques were innovatively appropriated for the community-based co-design. The paper illustrates the community-based co-design process and points the way toward imminent implementation, as well as the potential application of the mobile solution to other scenarios in Deaf people's lives.
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    Preparation of Deaf end-users and the softbridge for semi-automated relay trials
    (Telkom, 2004) Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David; Mashao, Daniel
    Following on the development of several prototypes, we have built a semi-automated Deaf Telephony prototype on the SoftBridge platform. This prototype relays text and speech between Deaf users on the Internet and hearing users on the telephone system. Previous work with a pilot trial in the laboratory revealed several opportunities for enhancement. We added a Wizard of Oz (WoOz) to replace the poorly performing automatic speech recognition functionality as well as H.323 breakout, more extensive logging and advanced call initiation functionality. In order to trial the current prototype, we initiated an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training programme with the Deaf Community of Cape Town. Twenty Deaf users participated in the training. In addition to the training, much baseline user data was collected to give an indication of how Deaf users communicate with hearing users as well as how familiar they are with ICT devices and services. The work for the rest of this year requires us to recruit and train a WoOz operator. Subsequent trials will essentially consist of monthly cycles of prototype introduction, training, automated metric and log collection, user feedback and then feature enhancement. Linguistic analyses of the text output of the Deaf users will be analyzed. We hope to refine the SoftBridge prototype to fit the needs of the Deaf and hearing users, from both technical and social viewpoints. We expect that these iterative cycles will continue for some time and will teach us many lessons regarding multi-modal semi-synchronous IP-based communications systems.
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    SignSupport: a limited communication domain mobile aid for a Deaf patient at the pharmacy
    (Telkom, 2013) Motlhabi, Michael B.; Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David
    This paper discusses a prototype for a communication aid on a mobile phone to support a Deaf1 person visiting a public hospital pharmacy. The aim is to prevent problems of non-compliance to treatment due to poor communication between a Deaf patient and a pharmacist. We studied the communication exchange between pharmacists and Deaf patients in a pharmacy setting in order to extract the most relevant content exchange between the two parties. A prototype was developed on a mobile phone and iteratively tested using role plays, questionnaires and focus groups with pharmacy students and Deaf participants. The prototype allows pharmacists to input text and make selections that provide detailed medical instructions in signed language to a Deaf patient. The prototype demonstrates the feasibility of encoding a limited communication flow on a mobile device, with carefully sequenced sign language videos that a Deaf patient can watch and understand in order to take medicine correctly.
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    SoftBridge in action: the first Deaf telephony pilot
    (Telkom, 2003) Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl; Lewis, John
    Following on several partial prototypes, we built an automated Deaf Telephony bridging application with the SoftBridge platform. The SoftBridge performs multi-modal bridging in real-time using Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) utilities accessed via web services. To perform Action Research with the Deaf community in Cape Town, we invited a Deaf user (DU) to participate in a pilot study. We conducted three tests varying the input/output modalities of the hearing user (HU). The DU had a standard text in/text out Instant Messaging client. The HU client used the following specific modality combinations: Text & TTS in/Text out, TTS in/Text out and TTS in/Text & ASR out. The SoftBridge logged the conversations for subsequent analysis. The trial showed a largely successful conversation. Success factors include a) a text and computer literate DU who is familiar with research practise, b) using the system to explain the research as we conducted it and c) that the multi-modal bridging capabilities overcame the expected shortcomings of TTS and especially ASR. The lessons learned from this trial will be applied to the next trial once the necessary modifications have been implemented.
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    Telecommunications bridging between deaf and hearing users in South Africa
    (2004) Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David
    This paper presents a description of telecommunications for Deaf people in South Africa by contrasting the situation in the developed world. We explain the main motivations for providing a locally appropriate solution. Research activity began with a community-based field trial of TTYs. The recommendations of the trial motivated an innovative approach to provide synchronous and accessible relay services. Drawing from international technological developments, we designed a software solution called the SoftBridge. We employ iterative Action Research cycles to drive technological modifications to the SoftBridge and to encourage adoption by the end-user community.
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    Telgo323: an H.323 Bridge for deaf telephony
    (Telkom, 2002) Penton, Jason; Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl
    We have developed a prototype bridge that relays text and speech between Teldem, a text telephone for the Deaf, and a standard telephone or H.323 endpoint. Telgo323 uses modified H.323 media gateways and open source Text to Speech and Speech to Text software. The approach allows for easy integration of new tools as the technologies mature. This paper presents the design of the implementation prototype, discusses Teldem tone decoding, and suggests directions for future work. The Telgo323 provides evidence that an automated relay bridge is imminently viable for the Deaf Community, and further demonstrates an attractive approach for building bridges over the Digital Divide.
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    Towards communication and information access for deaf people
    (SAICSIT, 2014) Blake, Edwin H.; Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl
    In tightly circumscribed communication situations, an interactive system resident on a mobile device can assist Deaf people with their communication and information needs. The Deaf users considered here use South African Sign Language and information is conveyed by a collection of pre-recorded video clips and images. The system was designed and implemented according to our method of community-based co-design. We present several stages of the development as a series of case studies and highlight our experience and the implications for design. The first stage involved ethnographically inspired methods such as cultural probes. In the next stage we co-designed a medical consultation system that was ultimately dropped for technical reasons. A smaller system was developed for pharmaceutical dispensing and successfully implemented and tested. It now awaits deployment in an actual pharmacy. We also developed a preliminary authoring tool to tackle the problem of content generation for interactive computer literacy training. We are also working on another medical health information tool. We intend that a generic authoring tool be able to generate mobile applications for all of these scenarios. These mobile applications bridge communication gaps for Deaf people via accessible and affordable assistive technology
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    Usability of an authoring tool for generalised scenario creation for signsupport
    (Telkom, 2015) Duma, Lindokuhle; Chininthorn, Prangnat; Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David
    This paper presents the usability testing results for an authoring tool that generalises scenario creation for a tool called SignSupport. SignSupport is a mobile communication tool for Deaf people that currently runs on an Android smartphone. The authoring tool is computer-based software that helps a domain expert, with little or no programming skills, design and populate a limited domain conversation scenario between a Deaf person and a hearing person, e.g., when a Deaf patient collects medication at a hospital pharmacy or when a Deaf learner is taking a computer literacy course. SignSupport provides instructions to the Deaf person in signed language videos on a mobile device. The authoring tool enables the creation and population of such scenarios on a computer for subsequent 'playback' on a mobile device. The output of this authoring tool is an XML script, alongside a repository of media files that can be used to render the SignSupport mobile app on any platform. Our concern now is to iteratively develop the user interface for the authoring tool, focusing on the domain experts who create the overall flow and content for a given scenario. The current authoring tool was evaluated for usability; for both pharmacy and ICDL course scenarios with purposive sampling. The findings suggest that the authoring tool can generalise SignSupport for multiple limited domain scenarios, mobile platforms and signed languages.
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    Web-based telephony bridges for the deaf
    (Telkom, 2001) Glaser, Meryl; Tucker, William David
    A Teldem provides text-based telephony services to the deaf. Despite an array of text-based communications mechanisms on the web, the Teldem is the only means of synchronous telecommunication available to a deaf person. We examine a human-assisted relay that provides a bridge between the deaf and the hearing, and then propose several additional bridges. These bridges take advantage of both standard and cutting edge technologies. We present each bridge's impact on the deaf with respect to synchrony, connectivity, independence, and the Digital Divide. It is hoped that by deploying trials for each bridge, we can eventually provide the deaf with equal access.