Design and Evaluation of a User-Interface for Authoring Sentences of American Sign Language Animation

Abstract

Many individuals who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) in the U.S. have lower English language literacy levels than their hearing peers, which creates a barrier to access web content for these users. In the present study we determine a usable interface experience for authoring sentences (or multi-sentence messages) in ASL (American Sign Language) using the EMBR (Embodied Agents Behavior Realizer) animation platform. Three rounds of iterative designs were produced through participatory design techniques and usability testing, to refine the design, based on feedback from 8 participants familiar with creating ASL animations. Later, a usability testing session was conducted with four participants on the final iteration of the designs. We found that participants expressed a preference for a “timeline” layout for arranging words to create a sentence, with a dual view of the word-level and the sub-word “pose” level. This paper presents the details of the design stages of the new GUI, the results, and directions for future work.