Browser-based sign language communication

Abstract

This paper describes the design and evaluation of two browser-based video communication prototypes that support sign language communication between Deaf people. The research explores combinations of technologies, protocols and architectures with the hope to eventually provide a mobile video system that Deaf people would want to use enough to pay for. Technology products, and in particular mobile and web-based video communication systems, are designed for the majority of people in general. These are not necessarily suitable for Deaf people who have very different physiological and cultural needs. We focus on browser-based video transmission because end-users need not fiddle with application installation. Web-browsers are also common on mobile phones. This paper compares two prototypes built with Adobe Flex and the fifth version of the HyperText Markup Language, H.264 and H.263 video codecs, and PC and mobile phone implementations. The paper describes the motivation, related work, methods, prototype design and finally analyses results of user experiments conducted with Deaf users.