Judging a Book by Its Cover: Assessing the Comprehensibility and Perceived Appearance of Sign Language Avatars

Abstract

The use of avatars is gaining popularity in today’s digitalized world. These computer-animated agents not only act as virtual shopping assistants to compensate for the impersonal feel of an online store, but are also frequently employed in gaming and social networking, and have recently served as animated characters for translation in the deaf community. New technological developments (sign language avatars) offer significant advantages for deaf users in daily interactions. This article explores how attitudes towards avatars, and subsequent satisfaction with the design company involved, can be increased through various measures. This experimental study manipulates the physical traits of signing avatars (gender, hairstyle, and dress) and analyses the outcomes in terms of their perceived properties, appearance, and comprehensibility, as well as more direct indicators of success (attitudes towards these avatars and satisfaction with the company). An industry partner cooperated in the empirical study to ensure the external validity of the findings.