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TextTalk
Creating an inclusive and accessible phone communication feature for individuals with hearing impairments to enhance their ability to have seamless and natural conversations.
Roles & Responsibilities
Research, Ideation, Wireframe, Visual design, Prototyping
Duration
2 weeks
Project brief
This project focuses on improving phone call accessibility for people with hearing impairments, ensuring they can communicate effortlessly in their everyday lives.
Phone calls are an essential part of modern communication, and this feature aims to break down the barriers that make them challenging for those with hearing difficulties. By creating an inclusive system, the project strives to make phone conversations more natural and accessible for everyone, enhancing independence and connectivity for hearing-impaired individuals.
Problem
Hearing-impaired individuals face challenges with phone calls due to reliance on sound cues, limiting their participation in real-time conversations.
Improved communication solutions are needed to ensure inclusive, seamless interactions that address the unique needs of the hearing impaired, enabling full engagement in verbal exchanges.
What makes resolving this issue crucial?
According to WHO 2023 statistics
63 million
People having hearing loss in India
6.3%
of the population in India is hearing impaired.
>1%
People know sign language
In India, a staggering 63 million people, accounting for 6.3% of the entire population are hearing impaired. Shockingly, less than 1% of these individuals are proficient in sign language.
Solution.
Introducing a ground-breaking feature for individuals with hearing impairments. When a call is received, an automated message informs the caller about the recipient's hearing impairment and prompts text-based communication.
A real-time chat box then facilitates immediate text exchange. It converts typed responses into a computerized voice and translates spoken words into text.
This ensures natural and inclusive phone calls, enabling effective communication for those with hearing impairments.
My Approach
Discover
Discovering and understanding the Problem space and the domain with the help of blogs, papers, videos, competitive analysis.
Define
Defining the project goals
User interview
Persona
Empathy maps
Creating Scenarios
Feedback
Ideate
Bulls eye chart
Impact and Effort chart
User flow
Task flow
Feedback
Design
Sketches
Wireframe
Feedback
Visual design
Prototyping
Feedback
Research
I decided to divide my research into two phases – a secondary research phase where I understood the domain and the context of the problem, understood the statistics in India and the existing solutions.
This was followed by a primary research phase where I conducted user interviews, and then synthesized all of this data that helped us build personas, empathy maps and design ideas.
Insights
Real-time communication solutions are essential.
Simple, user-friendly interfaces improve communication.
Many users prefer email for clarity, but it's not real-time.
Users need better voice-to-text and text-to-voice features.
Competitive analysis.
Hear-aid technology
What does it do?
Cons
Availability
VRS
Sign language interpreter
Needs to know sign
language
AVA
Captions on one to one
calls
Both the users need to
install the app
Google live Transcribe
Realtime captioned
Accuracy issue
Google Text to Speech
Put text-to-speech
Accuracy issue
Meet Mr. R. Verma
A retired Vigilance Officer from India, served the Ministry of Defence with distinction.
Now facing the challenges of aging, particularly hearing loss, he struggles with phone conversations, leading to frequent misunderstandings and social isolation.
Despite preferring email, he misses the spontaneity of real-time interactions. Yearning for a solution to bridge this gap, Mr. Verma's ultimate goal is to enhance his phone call experience, enabling clear and meaningful conversations despite his hearing impairment.
Feels
Frustrated by the limitations imposed by his hearing impairment.
Appreciates when others show patience and understanding during conversations.
Isolated at times due to difficulties in engaging in real-time communication.
Desires to feel included and connected despite his hearing challenges
Says
I prefer email communication over phone calls.
I find it challenging to hear during phone conversations.
I'm more comfortable reading than listening.
Does
Uses email as the primary mode of communication.
Avoids phone calls whenever possible due to hearing difficulties.
Relies on written communication to stay informed and engaged.
Thinks
I wish phone conversations were easier for me to understand.
I hope people understand my hearing limitations and communicate accordingly.
There must be a better way to stay connected despite my hearing impairment.
I feel frustrated when I miss out on important information in real time.
Brainstorming
I brainstormed several potential solutions to address the problem at hand, utilizing the Bullseye method to systematically evaluate and prioritize them.
Bulls eye
I then employed the Impact/Effort matrix to assess each solution, ensuring the selection of the most effective and efficient option.
Low effort
High effort
High impact
Low impact
Haptic feedback gives deaf individuals vibrations matching the other person's speech for an enhanced communication experience during calls.
A solution that converts the caller's words into stickers and images on the deaf person's phone for a visually expressive and inclusive call experience.
A solution that translates the caller's spoken words into sign language on the deaf person's phone.
A solution where the camera lip-reads the deaf person interprets the message, and verbally communicates it to the other person during phone calls.
Using AI to learn user patterns, analyze situations, and automatically provide context-aware responses during phone calls, enhancing communication for deaf individuals.
This feature transforms phone calls for deaf individuals with automatic introductions, bidirectional text, spoken communication, and quick suggestions.
Text Voicemail for Deaf Individuals.
After brainstorming, I identified the best possible solution, to enhanced communication feature for deaf individuals. It converts spoken words into text and typed responses into speech, allowing seamless and natural phone conversations. An automatic message informs the caller of the text-based interaction, ensuring easy and inclusive communication for both parties.
Scenario
To define the problem statement, below is a scenario to express how critical the problem is and why there is a requirement of solution.
Style guide
Typography
Aa
18px
16px
12px
San Francisco (SF) pro
Regular
Medium
Color palette
Primary
#652683
Secondary
#8B8EB2
Neutrals
#E9E9EB
#A0A4B0
Status bar
#CDEFCD
#EFBEBE
What led to the choice of these colors?
Research shows that lower wavelength colors like green, blue, and purple are calming and build trust. While green and blue are popular in messaging apps, purple offers clear differentiation and is linked to dignity and respect.
Studies in nursing homes reveal that soft purple shades are soothing and peaceful, improving circulation and energy levels. Therefore, we have chosen a pastel shade of purple for design.
Hello, how are you doing
Hello, how are you doing
Hello, how are you doing
Hello, how are you doing
For similar reasons, the call status bar will also use pastel shades — green to indicate active calls and red for ended.
Logo
.
=
Talk
+
Text
Neutrals
#E9E9EB
#A0A4B0
TextTalk logo is inspired by the name itself. The outer chat box resembles talk, communicate and the lines inside symbolizes texting.
User flow
messages
Wireframing
Testing
Five-Second Test: 4 out of 5 users quickly located TextTalk during a call.
Time on Task: Average activation time was 4.64 seconds.
Moderated Testing: Only 1 out of 5 users successfully activated the feature via settings, showing usability issues.
Misclicks: An average of 11 misclicks per user.
Task Satisfaction: Rated 8 out of 10 for accessing and identifying TextTalk messages.
Due to limited access to deaf participants around campus, testing is done with hearing individuals using noise-canceling headphones. Feedback may differ from that of actual deaf users.
Interface
How does it work
How do we accesses the text talk messages later
How to set up text talk
Prototype
Thank you!
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