Supporting Sign Language Users of Web Based Systems: A Feasibility Study

1. Abstract

This paper described the work performed jointly by the University of Durham and the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People (CACDP (1)) to migrate training and assessment courses for communication skills with deaf people to web based applications. Communication difficulties felt by deaf or hard of hearing members of the community lead to numerous problems including social isolation. Within the UK as a whole there is often desire or necessity to communicate with the deaf but there is a lack of experienced trained teachers to be able to train the hearing community to appropriate skilled levels where easy communication is possible. Furthermore, most of this training must be provided within people's leisure time so the training needs to be flexible and fun. This project through the use of web based materials will seek to reduce this training need gap. The main objective of this paper is to promote discussion on the topic of using the Internet to promote awareness of the communication difficulties of the deaf. The approaches to be adopted will be described within this paper, as will some of the some of the preliminary results obtained for early software feasibility studies. Some early conclusions are finally drawn regarding the direction in which the joint project will take.

2. What is CACDP?

CACDP (The Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People) is a registered charity that works to improve the quality and coverage of communication between deaf and hearing people. They currently offer qualifications in Deaf Awareness and British Sign Language (BSL), as well as provide publications and videos for sale.

3. Problems faced by Deaf People

There are approximately 8.7 million deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the UK, about 1 in 7 of the population. The problems they face when communicating with the hearing population are often not recognized, and even when they are, the hearing person will often not know how to communicate effectively. There are many differences in the ways deaf people communicate, as there are with the hearing population. Some deaf people can read English well and some cannot. Some deaf people prefer BSL but may have English as a second language, where others can lip-read to a level at which many hearing people would not realize they are deaf. Communication problems can lead to misunderstandings and other problems, as well as stress and anxiety and a feeling of discrimination or isolation. Effective communication is essential so that Deaf People can gain access to everyday activities without needing to focus on the communication rather than the content.

4. Aim of project

The aim of the project is to make the examinations already offered by CACDP, available to a wider range of people. Designing and implementing a web-based education and examination pack that will allow candidates greater access to the material in the Deaf Awareness or BSL courses will achieve this. Candidates will be able to access the information at times that suit them and from locations that suit them. They will be able to access as much or as little as they need or want at the time. It is hoped that the greater availability of the material will lead to an increase in the amount of people taking the courses and eventually an increase in the level of Deaf Awareness in the general population. This in turn would lead to less communication problems and less discrimination and isolation.

5. The Project Stages

The first stage of the project has involved the formation of a work plan based upon a two-year delivery phase. The first of the stages identified within this plan involves the conducting of a Market Survey. This survey will be carried out in order to determine the demand and interest in such a project from CACDP's current 'customers' i.e. those who are already taking the examinations and courses at the current time. It will attempt to gauge interest and any requirements they may have with regard to connections and hardware. Based on the results of the survey conducted a set of requirements will be derived. The resulting Requirements Report will serve as a means of formally determining the details of the requirements of CACDP. It will need to set out the exact specifications with regard to what the system needs to do and how it should do it. The second stage of the project will involve the formation of a CACDP Products and Services Strategy Document. This document will define supporting development processes for identified range of CACDP applications, initially concentrating on the existing products to be migrated to the World Wide Web firmly based on an engineering approach to hypermedia development and the web. It will need to define the Web development processes and identify appropriate methods and tools to support those processes. Also included in the Products and Strategies survey will be an investigation into the hardware requirements as CACDP have no existing web technology. This will be achieved through the proposed Specification of ITC Infrastructure Study. A major part of the project will be to determine what hardware support levels would be appropriate and resulting in a specification and strategy for the identification of the equipment required and then ultimately the installation of the equipment. Once the hardware installations are in place then some of the interesting work based on that of the software requirements will commence. Specifically a Web Based Deaf Awareness training programme with integrated online examination is proposed. This programme teaches candidates to understand and appreciate the problems faced by deaf people, and equips the candidates with some basic communication skills. This programme is designed so that candidates can access the material in the course over the web, either as an addition to the traditional teacher lead course, or as a standalone set of lessons. It is proposed that candidates will even be able to sit their examination via the web. Thus the project affords greater flexibility to all students encouraging greater levels of participation but also open the course to those who may be otherwise unable to attend such as those with mobility difficulties. Some early development work has already been done in this area by CACDP. Based on the experiences gained for the development of the Deaf Awareness Programme the engineering principles learned will then be applied and extended to support the more technical complex courses offered by CACDP. These include the training courses and examinations for BSL levels 1 and 2. Within these courses the complexities of sign language are covered and significant degrees of communication fluency are taught and examined. This has significant technological requirements necessitating video support. A detailed feasibility study and extensive trials will be used to ensure that the technology used is usable and feasible. Further technical complications are later introduced into the work with the formation of a web based Deafblind Awareness training programme with again an integrated online examination. This, since it is similar to the above training programme for Deaf Awareness, is to be used to evaluate if the proposed web engineering development processes are suitable. This use for constant process evaluation will ultimately be used to produce a web based development process improvement report. This report will identify a basis for continuous web development process improvement based on established software quality and process improvement standards. This review process will define benchmarks to ensure quality is maintained and ultimately improved within the company processes and procedures. However, for CACDP the migration of their training packages will not be their only technological achievement to come from this work. Later stages of the project plan to extend e-commerce through the company. This will include a web based CACDP Directory and associated on-line database and services. The CACDP publishes a directory of Interpreters and Agencies. It is intended to make this available over the web as a searchable database. This would tie in with further advancements into the world of e-commerce, possibly to allow CACDP to charge money for the use of the Directory and to allow them to offer other products for sale e.g. publications and videos.

6. A Feasibility Study

Before the development work is to fully commence it has been decided to conduct a feasibility study. This feasibility study will be used to evaluate the provision of other existing products that offer similar functionality. This will allow the gathering of a base of knowledge on which to base the new system. The success or failure of the other similar products will help when determining the requirements of the new system. Although sign languages differ from country to country this study has not been restricted to BSL alone. Despite this, the results of the survey point to the fact that there are not many systems available that offer sign language training facilities. The study has identified that, of those that have been developed, they tend to fall into one of three categories. These are as follows:
1. Dictionary based - Some simply offer a dictionary function, that is, the user enters or, more often, selects a word from those on offer and this is signed to them by the use of a short video clip, or a succession of clips.
2. Lesson based - Other applications work using a lesson based approach where the user can progress through the language.
3. Game based - A third method makes use of games and tests to reinforce the vocabulary learning. The feasibility study has analyzed examples of each of these basic types of systems and categorized its results based on these broad categories.

In order to evaluate these systems a number of evaluation criteria have been devised. These criteria are based on the requirements of CACDP and that of web based non-vocation training courses in general. The criteria used within this evaluation are as follows:
1. System usability characteristics - this includes the presentation of the information on the computer screen, its layout and the general 'first impressions' felt by users.
2. Language specifics - this evaluation criterion investigates if the software is composed for a specific deaf communication language and what, if any, implications this support will have for other deaf communication languages.
3. Pedagogical nature of the application - including the training approaches used and whether this appropriately supports the learning process.
4. Navigation capabilities - this criterion evaluates if learners are able to appropriately navigate around the software, whether they become lost and disorientated and the overall effect this has on the teaching.
5. Use of technology - this aspect evaluates the types of technologies that are used and how effective each technology is in terms of supporting learning.
6. Real time capabilities - what speeds are demanded by the software and whether technology is able to deliver the required expectations and overall how this effect the learning process.
7. Entertainment - since many of the learners will be using these courses as non-vocational the entertainment factor is also consider an important aspect in the process of maintaining the motivation of the learner.

The CD-ROMs were all tested on the same Pentium III 650MHz laptop machine with a fast DVD Drive. The results of the evaluation process using the above criteria are now discussed. The dictionary based systems tend to simply offer functionality where the user can select a word from a list, e.g. apple and they are shown a short video clip which they have to copy in order to learn the word. One example of this type of system is the HandSpeak (2) Web Site. This site uses American Sign Language (ASL) as it is an American site, but the principles that can be applied remain the same. There are various problems with this type of site in that they tend not to offer a very wide range of vocabulary, although HandSpeak claims to offer 3,090 words, and they do not offer any help with grammar or syntax. Some of the sites in this category also offer the user the chance to type in a sentence and have the whole sentence signed back to them. This is a good idea in principle, but what happens in practice is the sentence is simply translated word-for-word and therefore is not any use for learning as BSL is not translated from English in this manner, but is a language with a grammar and rules. Therefore this is not the correct way to translate BSL. These sites are more useful for increasing vocabulary than for teaching ASL or BSL as languages. A second problem with this method, and with all methods that use video clips, the video clips show the signing from the viewers point of view, and therefore this is very difficult to copy. On the other hand, the signing cannot be shown from the signer's point of view, as all they would see is the signers back. There are various examples of this type of site. E.g. HandSpeak, or the ASL Dictionary Site (3). The HandSpeak site is more effective as it uses real-life video clips, where the ASL Dictionary uses mainly line drawings with a few real-life video clips which are slow and jerky, and a description of the sign in words. However the HandSpeak site is confusing as the signed words are only shown in a small frame down the right hand side of the page, and not as the main feature. A second method is the Lesson Based approach. This is a more traditional approach to learning and would allow the user to start with simple signing and progress as they learned. An example of this type of application is the "Sign Language For Everyone" CD-ROM (4). Again, the language being taught is ASL as this is an American product. It uses a series of lessons made up from text, audio and video to teach ASL. The application itself is confusing as it has icons for controls where the designers have not made it clear what the icons actually do. The video clips used are fast and clear with a textual description of each sign. This is effective as a method of teaching. The program is slow to run from the CD though which can get frustrating and make the user lose track of the lesson. A different approach is to teach the language using a series of games and make use of vocabulary in this way. This is termed the Game Based approach. An example of this way of teaching is used on the "Simple Signs" CD-ROM (5). The user must select the correct answer to the question based on what he thinks the translation of the signed word is. This is a slightly different approach to the dictionary style as here the user is shown the signed word and asked the translation, whereas in the dictionary style they select the word and are shown the sign. The games approach should be more effective as the user must work out what the sign is, instead of being told what it shows. This approach is very useful when learning to read BSL, but does not have any formal sections for the user to attempt the signs themselves. Again, as with the dictionary approach, this method does not teach the user any of the rules or grammar of the language. It is a good method for teaching vocabulary as it will be fun and will reinforce the vocabulary being taught in a non-obvious manner.

7. Conclusion

The use of the evaluation criteria has afforded the opportunity to assess and compare the differing systems within our study. The findings of the study reveal that there are many good and interesting features of a good number of the systems, but in addition many of these have some drawbacks. The results of the feasibility study will be used as a means of composing a list of useful features and technological approaches for the requirements of the CACDP system. Overall from conducting the feasibility study it has been identified that this type of system is not simple to design. There are complexities due to the need for cross-discipline knowledge from both Education and Computer Science, as well as a very good knowledge of the Deaf Awareness material. In order to be considered a success, such a system must be designed to teach rather than simply inform, and in addition the pedagogical approach adopted must serve to motivate students if it is to be successful as a non-vocation course. One important feature of the CACDP system that is not inherent within the other systems evaluated is that of the technical issue of security. CACDP, in their proposed policy of open access to course materials (i.e. to allow disabled people to study from home) is yet to solve the problem of certification of the examination process to ensure the correct candidate sits the examination process. Additional work will now be conducted to ensure that the open policy principles are maintained together with the security of the qualification certification process. The early work of this project is aimed at teaching communication skills to hearing students. This, it is hoped, through increasing public awareness and training will significantly assist the general communications problems that the deaf community faces. However, eventually it is anticipated that the technologies that are developed through this project will directly help the deaf community. Many of the deaf community prefer to communicate through sign language rather than the written word therefore the technologies devised within this project to train and educate could eventually be used as a direct communication mechanism to the deaf.

8. References

(1) www.cacdp.demon.co.uk
(2) www.handspeak.com
(3) www.bconnex.net/~randys
(4) Sign Language For Everyone CD-ROM, 2nd Ed., Higher Learning Systems
(5) Simple Signs CD-ROM, Sign Communique