Publication Title
Accessible web for deaf and hard of hearing with transparent multimodal sign language interpreter module
Publication Type
PhD thesis
Year of publication
2011
City
University
Language(s)
English
Source
BITRA
Abstract
This thesis introduces a possible solution (method) for providing accessible information to the deaf and hard of hearing on the Web. The Sign Language Interpreter Module (SLI Module) method combines three different types of modalities: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. The visual modality is represented by the video of a sign language interpreter with the addition of subtitles. The auditory modality is reflected as speech and the kinesthetic modality is defined as user interaction activating sign language videos on demand. In comparison to previous technological Web solutions, the innovation of the proposed SLI Module method is that it envelops various modalities for delivering written information. The presentation of this information as sign language videos with subtitles can be easily integrated into original Web sites, while fully preserving the layout's structure. This is possible due to the use of Web specifications such as HTML for layout presentation and the ubiquitous use of JavaScript scripting language for interaction. In addition, the method uses external W3C Timed Text format for subtitling. The analysis of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 recommendations showed that these recommendations are still too general and inadequate for deaf people who use sign language as their first language. For this reason, the thesis argues that the main problem of the Web accessibility guidelines is that they focus mainly on functionalities instead of user experience. In the thesis, the reasons for selecting sign language videos over synthetic signing, such as avatars, are addressed. The process of producing sign language videos is described in depth. The thesis analyses present Web dictionaries on the Web and introduces motivations factors and development of a Web glossary on demand (SLI Glossary) using the SLI Module method. Additionally, this approach can be used for monitoring Web users activities and can also be used as an indicator for further sign language videos recordings. The SLI Glossary method does not represent a text-to-sign-language automatic translator, but a way to enable single word sign language translations to original Web sites.