Co-creation workshop at Deaf Village Ireland with SignON project
On 12 November, ADAPT’s #DiscussAI team and the SignON project team hosted a co-creation workshop with members of the Deaf, hard of hearing and hearing communities at Deaf Village Ireland.
The event began with a panel of presentations from Davy Van Landuyt (European Union of the Deaf), Rehana Omardeen (European Union of the Deaf) and Elizabeth Mathews (Dublin City University). The panel was chaired by Lianne Quigley (Trinity College Dublin)
Participants in the workshop were asked to consider:
- Do you think Sign Language Avatars and apps are useful?
- When and where do you think this type of technology would be useful?
About the SignON Project
SignON is a user-centric and community-driven project which aims to develop a communication service that translates between signed and spoken (in both text and audio) languages and caters for the communication needs between Deaf, hard of hearing and hearing individuals across Europe, targeting the Irish, British, Dutch, Flemish and Spanish sign as well as the English, Irish, Dutch and Spanish spoken languages. SignON is a European funded Horizon 2020 project.
Find out more about SignON here: https://signon-project.eu/ or watch the video.
Some of the key points from the event:
Some appropriate situations that were identified where an app like SignON could be used:
- Hotels and restaurants,
- Airports or train stations, public transportation
- Last minute safety warnings or unexpected weather alerts, traffic jams
- Certain workplace contexts, such as emergency/last minute meetings
- Translating audio from the radio
- Technology like SignON should not be used in high-risk situations, such as the medical or legal domain.
Concerns about using an app like SignOn
- How would an app translate emotion, in the way an interpreter would for example?
- Network connectivity for connecting to the Internet
- Limitations of the app when it comes to context, slang, bad language or words which have multiple meanings
- Linguistic variation such as the difference in signing between older and younger Deaf people, men and women, and regional variants
- Interpreters could become obsolete
- People might be reluctant to use the technology if they’re not familiar with it
Other Points
- It was noted that the needs of Deafblind people should be considered in the development of the app and tactile signing.
Next event 25 November 2022, online
We will be using the key points from Saturday’s event to develop a discussion scenario for our next Think-In event on 25 November.
The event takes place online and we invite you to register here: https://bit.ly/Nov25_SignON
Please note, you do not need to have attended on the 12th to register for the next event.
ALL WELCOME, ISL and IS interpretation will be at the event.
