ICT Innovations Workshop MMS Sign Project Toward making

ICT Innovations Workshop MMS Sign Project Toward making mobile phones accessible for Deaf Prof. Mohamed Jemni Research Laboratory La. TICE - University of Tunisia

Research Laboratory La. TICE – University of Tunis • E-science, E-learning and E-accessibility • Accessible e-learning • Using ICT to improve communication with Deaf – Project WEB SIGN – Project MMS SIGN 2

Web Accessibility 3

Research Laboratory UTIC – University of Tunis • Collaborating with W 3 C to promote web accessibility in the Arab World • Arab version of the Guidlines WCGA 2. 0 www. utic. rnu. tn/wcag 2. 0 4

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Deaf and Accessibility 6

Motivation • World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), confirmed that 80% of Deaf people lack education or are undereducated, are illiterate or semi-literate (2003). 7

Web. Sign • Allow communication with deaf people using sign language via the web and internet. • Automatic translation of written text to sign language. • Development of avatar based system. 8

Demonstration 9

Research Problem • Non universality of sign language - More than 127 official sign languages; - T. S. E Tunisian sign language; - A. S. L American sign language. - L. S. F French sign language. In the same country we can find some differences between sign languages. 10

Research Problem • Unavailability of open source tools for translation to sign language. • Video based systems need an important bandwidth in addition to their costs. • Difficulties of dictionary construction (time and cost). • Animation of the avatar needs sophisticated programming skills. 11

Our approach • - Construction of the dictionary: - a friendly of use graphical interface to introduce signs - No need to programming skills - collaborative approach: many people can contribute in this task 12

Our approach 13

Our approach • Possibility of creation of a virtual community: - For every national/regional sign language - a standard dictionary can be used as a reference - An administrator for every community to validate/accept sign propositions - Multilanguage interface 14

Web. Sign services • Web. Sign can be used as a service witch translates text to sign languages. • Developers can use it in order to create accessible applications. 15

Some Web. Sign based applications 16

Courses generator for deaf children Demonstration 17

Motivation • Mobile phones are not accessible to deaf persons. • More than 80% of deaf in the World are analphabet. Voice or Text • They can not use the SMS technology. 18

MMS Sign - To make cell phones accessible for deaf 19

Objectives of MMS SIGN • Our objective is to make mobile phone’s services usable and accessible to deaf persons. • Our objective is to allow sending MMSs in sign language. I speak Sign language 20

MMSSign DEMONSTRATION World Summit Award (WSA) – Mobile 2010 21

Accessible 3 D signing avatars: the Tunisian experience Student Award 2012

Mobile Sign Language Translation System for Deaf Community Best Paper Communication Award Web For All 2012

Thank you … Professor Mohamed Jemni Contact details Head of the Research Laboratory La. TICE University of Tunis –Tunisia Mohamed. jemni@fst. rnu. tn www. utic. rnu. tn