Publication
Assessing the Deaf User Perspective on Sign Language Avatars
Michael Kipp; Quan Nguyen; Alexis Heloir; Silke Matthes
In: Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS-11), 13th, October 24-26, Dundee, United Kingdom, ACM Press, 2011.
Abstract
Signing avatars have the potential to become a useful and
even cost-effective method to make written content more
accessible for Deaf people. However, avatar research is characterized
by the fact that most researchers are not members
of the Deaf community, and that the Deaf as potential users
have little or no knowledge about avatars. Therefore, we
suggest two well-known methods, focus groups and online
studies, as a two-way information exchange between research
and Deaf community. Our aim was to assess signing avatar
acceptability, shortcomings of current avatars and potential
use cases. We conducted two focus group interviews (N=8)
and, to quantify important issues, created an accessible online
user study (N=330). This paper deals with both the
methodology used and the elicited opinions and criticism.
While we found a positive baseline response to the idea of
signing avatars, we also show that there is a statistically
significant increase in positive opinion caused by participating
in the studies. We argue that inclusion of the Deaf on
many levels will foster acceptance as well as provide important
feedback regarding key aspects of avatar technology
that need to be improved.