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Comment by throwaway77384 | Hacker News Reader

I worked with these folks for a while. I also work with the deaf community.

Sign Language gloves are an interesting idea, but they don't work. Sign language relies heavily on facial expressions and body language beyond the hands.

This was also tried here before: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navid-azodi-and-thomas-...

But deaf people aren't actually that keen on these solutions, as I found out when I proposed this to some of them myself.

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You are absolutely correct that while the solutions don’t work that is only part of the problem - the fact that engineers think they can come in and „fix“ communication for the deaf community is a bigger issue. Directly involving your users (as you did) is so important when designing for someone with different needs and preferences. I hope other well meaning talented engineers read your comment and will take it to heart.

By reading your comment and making that very clear, I did!

Taken to <3

I think more people should take it to heart. If you want to influence cultures for the better, you need to interact with them. It's obvious when you know it, less obvious when you don't.

> Sign Language gloves are an interesting idea, but they don't work. Sign language relies heavily on facial expressions and body language beyond the hands.

For clarity, could you give an example of a sign that changes to mean a different word or phrase depending on facial expression?

> But deaf people aren't actually that keen on these solutions

People often aren't keen on solutions that are either still nascent or that they haven't given a chance yet. My mom wasn't keen on navigating with a GPS until she had one in her car and it changed her life. Not being keen is not on its own a great reason to dismiss a technology. The reason matters.

IMO a more meaningful statement might be to say that the obvious alternative is simply a small keyboard, which already exists.

Questions are almost entirely made with the face (by raising the eyebrows) as one example, which is ASL specific.

I think technology might someday be able to understand ASL and other signed languages (every region/area has their own signed language, generally). But it will be long after computers can easily understand spoken/written languages, which they can only sort of do now and even then very rudimentary currently.

Languages are very complex, and signed languages are no different, but add extra complexity, because you have to also handle facial expressions and hand/arm AND body movements (the whole body moves in ASL to delineate different contexts as another example.)

I for instance just carry around an iPad with a text app (like Sorenson's Buzzcards) which make communicating with hearing people way easier, and save paper.

> Questions are almost entirely made with the face (by raising the eyebrows) as one example, which is ASL specific.

Thank you for the clear example. I think this context really helps people understand the conversation better.

I feel like a software and camera approach can work for this then, without dedicated hardware.

The other day I saw a blind person who appeared to be navigating using his phone camera and headphones. Saw him cross the road, etc.

Did you notice whether he appeared to be talking to someone? I wonder if he was using a GPS-based navigation app or a remote assistance service like Aira (https://aira.io/).

Yes in fact he was talking to someone. That's amazing!

what made you predict $600k/btc in 2011

More importantly, there are far more efficient systems like typing on a phone.

Still, I think it's a wonderful idea, wish I'd thought of it. Bravo I say.

Isn't it empirically not a good idea? Deaf people can't use it, it can't work, as sign is more than just the hand movements. It's like using an IDE made by a cello player that uses musical notes instead of letters to write code.

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