Inclusive Design: Designing for Deaf People Helps Everyone | Marie van Driessche

perfect thank you I'm really happy to be here today I live in Amsterdam actually so you come here for 30 plus hours travel and I get here on my bike in five minutes that's a big difference as you can see I use the sign language we have an interpreter in the front who and translates my my story in my speech to you in English and the other way around as well well, Peters already told me who I Who I am something about my background and I now work with ABN AMRO Bank I'm an inclusive and interaction designer, I also work with accessibility and I also use interpreters on a daily basis at my work for all kinds of things meetings with co-workers presentations like today and all kinds of other meetings with clients for instance so the government in the Netherlands provides interpreting hours if we need interpreters we can ask for them and all interprets of our deaf people go through that as that governmental body so they interact with many many deaf people on a daily basis, people need interpreters will work for all kinds of situations but still they send us letters like these please call us if you need some extra information. yeah so talking about being deaf what does that really mean well obviously it means that you cannot hear but there's more to it, there are two main mainstream ideas about the perspectives about it they're lower cap d is used to describe or identify anyone who has a severe hearing problem and then on the other hand deaf with the capital D is used by deaf people to identify themselves as culturally deaf and people who have a strong Deaf identity if you want to understand how deafness influences web accessibility and vice versa it's good to understand how deaf people see themselves in the world and many deaf people don't in don't see themselves as being disabled they see themselves as a cultural linguistic minority there are many causes to becoming deaf you can become deaf by meningitis by an illness old age medicine use hearing damage and it can be hereditary and you can also be born deaf like me and for me that is not an issue that's no problem it makes me who I am and it's fine many deaf people use a sign language as I do now Dutch sign language is my native language and sign languages are not simple gestural codes based on a spoken language they're not pantomime but they are real four dimensional spatial languages they don't have a written form grammar and syntax is very different from those of spoken languages and they rely heavily on facial expression to convey meaning and emphasis I just want to show you a little video which will not be interpreted because I think you know the story and it will show you illustrate how facial expressions are being used in sign language many many times we get asked the question if sign language is universal that is not the case every country has their own sign language as they have their own spoken language so there is French sign language there is american sign language and there is also dutch sign language and within those are sign languages there are also dialects and you have to understand that the primary language of a country is spoken language is for many deaf people their second language you can compare deaf readers for instance for instance with second language readers it's important to understand that deaf people see themselves as a cultural linguistic minority rather than people with a disability and that means that we are not we're not able to or people use the spoken language of their country as a second language and that Porco's it causes a problem because they're people we fall between the hearing community and the disabled community we don't have physical problems we don't need physical adjudged adjustments but we need cultural and linguistic adjustments I want to try to explain to you how the grammar for sign languages works in English you in English you would say would you like to have lunch with me in sign language you wouldn't say it that way you would say to me lunch go and another example is the yellow ball is in the cupboard in stylings you would come to the cupboard first there's a cupboard there the yellow ball is inside be careful to notice that this Remer different grammar doesn't mean that it's more simple more simplified it's just simply different it differs from other languages as French and English differ from each other and from Russian for instance as a community the deaf community is very small but also very diverse there is a big group of people who are deaf who also have additional disabilities they have learning problems or cognitive challenges there is a slightly smaller group and that use a sign language primarily and use their country's spoken language as a second language they can express themselves in their sign language completely but if you ask them to write down something then they make mistakes and then there's a the top group those are people are bilingual who master the spoken language of that country and their sign language really well but that's a very very small group so now designing for deaf people were actually for everybody else what's important is to recognize exclusion by identifying a problem and then you get to inclusive design and there is a not a one-size-fits-all solution for many issues and I won't give you some tips some ideas to improve your design for deaf people but also for others when you write for the web that's one of the important things there are some good tips from a list apart and usability.gov if you use these you can improve your readability and not only for deaf people but for other people too like for instance these people 50% of US adults can't read book written at eighth grade level that's a very big group many people drop out of formal education because of dyslexia poor vision not identified learning issues or they simply haven't find found a learning environment that fits fits their needs also in the Netherlands 1 in 6 Dutch adults have difficulty in reading writing and or calculating and that for deaf people that number is even higher that is 80% so the tips that I'm going to show you will help you improve the readability of your website so use headings and subheadings make one point per paragraph use short sentences - ten words per line use bulleted lists use easy accessible language whenever possible writing in journalistic style make your point and then explain it right in an active form avoid unnecessary unnecessary jargon and slang which can increase the users cognitive load use images diagrams multimedia solutions for a visual translation of the content chunk your content use white space and include a glossary so specialized vocabulary and provide definitions in simple language this would be good for medical terms for instance there is a very large group of people who read when they read a website they only read 20 to 28 percent they read websites differently from pieces of paper text on paper they want to find things fast and they don't have the patience to go through everything on the site and this is not just about me this is for people who use language as a second language as well and everybody else in the world is well you too subtitles might be a good idea is a very good idea for me I'm very happy with subtitles I like to read it gives full access for me that is not a problem but it can be a problem for some people synonyms wordplay language jokes are not always familiar to deaf people who don't use them in the same way so that might pose some difficulties and as I said before how long sign languages don't have written form so if you give someone subtitles then they have a written translation from a language that they have to read but they don't have a written form of their own language so that can also be a problem sometimes yeah the point of subtitles obviously is that you convey the content the meaning the information it's not meant to test the language capabilities of your audience so it doesn't have to be verbatim or like this this is really not necessary there are also other solutions transcripts are out there and those are awesome too but they also still pose problems because large chunks of texts are really hard to read for some people for the average deaf people multimedia solutions are a very good solution I like for instance this one when you translate the content in sign language by a native signer and this is an example from our website for a political party here in the Netherlands and they have translated their election program into Dutch sign language which is very good but it's also very costly and takes a lot of time because if something changes in the content you have to redo the whole video again yeah for me I don't have the patience to look through the whole video just to find one bit of information but it's very much appreciated by many many deaf people it's a good solution for important information and complex information like politics insurance information on Texas or medical information and I think it would be good if you have a website that we would have an icon there like this with the two hands that signals to people that a sign language translation is available and they can click on that and see it watch it if they need to and you can do the same with glossary for specific terms me myself I like to read other texts but people can also opt for a sign language translation and this would mean that users can choose the solution that fits their needs best also very important multiple contact options most of the time you only require to fill out a phone number that is something that is not helpful for me there are many many other options you can use whatsapp Skype all kinds of chat programs email even if I want to see my family doctor right now I have to go through an interpreting service I have to call them and they will then call the doctor which is a good solution but still not the best way this is a very good example this is a British TV company it's called sky and they have a whole load of contact options for people you can even address them in BSL British sign language or by text which is awesome so yeah phone numbers more and more I see this field in the uniform when you buy something or something else yeah well phone number is mandatory and it's very annoying because I know that this will happen this is actually what happened to me I was called by this phone company three or four times a day during a whole week what do I do with this thing with this phone that's ringing and I can't answer so please when you design something make sure the people can opt out of information that you don't use or that they don't find necessary the World Health Organization had a perspective on disability used to be they used to say that it was a personal health condition but perspective has changed they now call it mismatched human interaction and this connects to your research that's been done by Microsoft on inclusive desert design which makes use of the whole scholar of human differences and we can make sure that people participate in real life and in the digital world as well if you make sure that everybody participates if we know where the problems lie that everybody can be a fully participation in the world so in this case it's not meant to you know check a checklist for accessibility but rather being a future for inclusive design if we can make open an accessible design for everybody everybody can participate I don't have a disability Society makes me disabled it's the mismatch with society as I said before I don't see myself as a person with a disability but the boundaries being posed by society make me disabled it's important to recognize exclusion and this happens when we solve problems with our own biases seek out exclusion understand why people are being excluded excluded and sometimes exclusion is right temporary you can have a broken arm and you have to do things with one hand or you look into bright lights that you can see someone on the other side and also exclusion is sometimes situational people move through different environments and adapt our abilities accordingly when you for instance order food abroad and you don't understand the menu or if it's loud in a pub somewhere or when you're a new parent with a baby on your arm you have to do one things with one hand so well it's important to learn from diversity inclusive design means that people are the center of the process from the start and humans are we as humans are very are amazing and adapting to different settings and if we know how these these adaptations these adaptations work those are the keys to new and exclusive design and seek out people who have experienced daily experience with exclusion because they are the ones that are the experts your users not you so for one extend too many inclusive design works well for abroad Scala of related problems it's not a one size fits all but one size fits one and then eventually others will benefit from that as well an example would be the subtitles that have been created for deaf and hard of here people but now on Facebook 85% of videos are being watched without sound also if a video has subtitles they will people will finish the clip twice as much and also many users are hearing I want to show you a video here hello my name is Thomas and this is Navid we are inventors in the Lemelson m.i.t student prize competition access to communication is a basic fundamental human right and every single person deserves to be part of the global community however those who are deaf or mute communicate differently than everyone else they primarily use sign language while the rest the world communicates verbally this puts the deaf mute community at a disadvantage because like a foreigner in another country they can't communicate like everybody else what we decided to do is create gloves that translate sign language in a text and speech we have had extensive work with individuals in the disabled community they have seen firsthand their daily struggles we wanted to develop something that would help the deaf and mute better communicate with the rest of all without changing how they already interact with each other by simply putting on a pair of gloves those who utilize American Sign Language can now communicate with the rest of the world the same way they communicate with each other the gloves worked by utilizing sensors on the hand and wrist to measure hand position and hand movements the gloves then send this data into the computer via bluetooth for processing once the computer recognizes an interprets a sign it then outputs a corresponding word or phrase in text in speech you were to say hello and well thank you it would look something like this hello I'm well thank you and just like that we've translated an American sign language into spoken English instantly there are approximately 70 million deaf mute people in the world you sign language but over seven billion humans on the planet our device revolutionizes the way these two communities understand and interact with each other currently there is no commercial sign language translator on the market with this invention over 70 million people achieve a new level of Independence 70 million people gain access to a new job and 70 million people secure improved quality of life all with the help of a pair of gloves we believe that access and inclusiveness are catalysts for change these gloves were crafted with this principle in mind and seek to promote a more unified and global community well I have a couple of comments on this video that I don't agree with there is a bit of a poor choice in words like disabled community deaf and mute those kinds of words I don't see myself as being disabled as I as I told you and deaf mute is something that I don't really identify with those are very funny that it works only one way so we see this boy signing to this girl and then the girl talks back to the boy mmm that's interesting and also they say that you know now all everybody can now communicate but not everybody in the world knows American Sign Language so sign languages are culturally bound languages they're very rich they have strong facial expressions as I mentioned before and it's impossible to translate all of that in one glove as you saw in the video I showed you before we as designers want to generate ideas and designs based on what we know that's what we do then we use our own frameworks and we strive to work solutions to improve lives for everybody else do you make things go well that work and solutions that work well I would want to solve needs the problem only is if we use our own skills is a baseline and then our solutions might work for some people not for everybody else I have to be careful of our ability bias in the world we have seven point four billion people and it's impossible to create one design for everybody but if you design for people and not with people then you will then that will cause exclusion and I would like to end this quote with endless talk with this quote from James jar - nothing about us without us thank you very much

Channel: awwwards.

Views: 6,755

Keywords: awwwards, awwwards conference, awwwards amsterdam, design talks, accessibility, wearable technology, ted talk, digital design, technology, readability, inclusive design, UX, UI, web design, sign language, linguistics, Deaf, interaction designer, designers, deaf design

Id: M0cR_HTeWUo

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2019