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User Interface Designs |
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”Signing Science Dictionary”
–a dictionary of science terms adapted for deaf gradeschool students
”Signing Science” investigates the benefits to deaf students of a virtual sign-language interpreter (the ”Signing Avatar”) that screen-reads text in the user's choice of American Sign Language or Singed English. This approach was driven in part by research showing that the deaf process language in fundamentally different ways. This can make the constructions of verbal language hard to understand, even when presented in written form. These projects are done under the capable direction of TERC Principle Investigator Judy Vesel.
These students often lag in reading skills, and vision problems are not uncommon. Signing Science interfaces are designed for larger-than-normal monitor displays. They have brighter colors and larger buttons to make it easier to click with poor hand-eye skills. Default text sizes are larger than normal, and the screens always have a larger text-display-resize widget than similar controls on other interfaces. Text content uses simpler sentences, and instructions are made especially clear.
My tasks on the Signing Science Dictionary included:
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Design and coding of page templates, buttons, graphics, widget controls, and logo.
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Usability review and subsequent redesign of the original interface to the Avatar itself.
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Creating style guidelines covering text sizes, colors, and affordance design.
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Conducting ongoing usability walkthroughs to refine clickpaths and workflows.
* Techies may notice that the dictionary lives in a frameset (sigh). Unfortunately, this is required by the underlying Signing Avatar technology. :–)
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