On 11 December 2008, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published an important update to their guidelines aimed at making the internet a more accessible place for people with disabilities. Ten years on and we’ve not seen much of an impact. Let’s look at why and what can be done to speed things up.

Accessibility for a Web2.0 world

Remember that phrase; ‘Web2.0’? It was coined to encapsulate the fact that websites had largely changed from being static pages of information to web applications full of functionality. Web pages were becoming complicated things full of JavaScript and (ugh) Flash and the internet was becoming an increasingly ‘no-go zone’ for people with a wide range of impairments. Not using a mouse on our new, sexy AJAX web application? Tough. Distracted by that constantly updating carousel full of animated ads? Our bad, but we’re still not going to allow you to stop that scrolling. Want to make changes to text size or colours in our new Flash-based website? Sorry – move on.

The W3C press release at the time highlighted how the update to the accessibility guidelines (known as WCAG2.0) assisted in making the new wave of websites inclusive and, as it happens, easier to use by everyone. This latter fact should be obvious to anyone – make something easier to use for people that need extreme usability and you’ll make it better all-round. I should also mention at this juncture that following these same guidelines make a website more findable through search engines, quicker to download, more easily updated/refreshed, more screen size independent and more future-proof. Like I say; better all-round.

Less than 10% take-up

“So why,” I hear you cry, “aren’t more websites following these guidelines if they’re such hotcakes?” (or words to that effect). The answer boils down to effort and commitment – or lack thereof.

Today, organisations are well aware that it not only makes strong business sense to make their websites (and mobile apps, digital marketing campaigns and customer communications) inclusive to as many users as possible, and they almost certainly know that it’s a legal requirement under the Equality Act, but checking against the guidelines and making the necessary changes as a routine part of the development and testing process takes a little extra effort, as well as an on-going commitment to embed these additional steps into workflows. How much more? An estimated 2-5% if it’s done as a routine part of build and maintenance – which is far outweighed by the savings and extra business it brings.

So inclusive design is a no-brainer, most would argue. Oh, and it’s just the right thing to do too. I think you’d be hard-pushed to find anyone who would disagree.

If you want a shining example of a successful business, with an eagle-eye on the bottom line, who have embraced accessibility in everything they do then you need look no further than Apple. Thank you Apple for doing the right thing by tens of millions of disabled customers around the world. Oh and for the record, I’d also like to thank Apple for their refusal to support Flash on iOS. This one single decision ultimately spelt the demise of one of the most challenging aspects of the Web2.0 world.

Forcing sites to get fit

We’re coming up to another anniversary – the annual celebration of a new year with all it’s fresh potential. Many of us make new year’s resolutions such as losing weight or getting fit. Embracing accessibility is a lot like getting fit – there’s on-going effort involved but you know in your heart that it’s important and worthwhile and that the benefits will ultimately outweigh the effort.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some external influence encouraging you to take those first invaluable steps towards that better, healthier place? Many of us will virtually compete with friends or colleagues to give us that extra little incentive. Some of us may even pay to have someone shout at us and force us to get fit. The point is that it’s often necessary to employ sticks as well as carrots to help us overcome our natural state of inertia and get some momentum going.

When it comes to websites the stick, in the form of the Equality Act, has been all but invisible. It’s more of a limp twig. In the ten year lifespan of the above excellent accessibility guidelines and the nearly nine years in which it’s been a legal requirement to proactively address the inaccessibility of all your digital services, we’re still in single digit percentages of websites actually achieving compliance. The fear of the limp twig of legislation hasn’t provided that extra bit of motivation that companies obviously need to get with the programme and begin to feel the benefits.

At our recent sell-out tech conference; Techshare Pro organisations including Apple, Google and Barclays spoke about the importance of getting with the programme. However, the day was kicked off with a keynote; ‘Carrots vs Sticks’ by Ellie Southwood (of the RNIB, co-organisers of the event) and myself in which we highlighted the on-going need for the legal stick to be strengthened to successfully support the very juicy carrots we’d be hearing about throughout the day. Whilst Apple, Google and Barclays are on-board, many companies are still lounging around on their collective couches - and the internet’s a place that’s unfit for many millions of users as a result.

Whilst governments of other countries such as Norway see it as their responsibility to enforce the law (fining companies up to €15,000 a day after a deadline is passed), our own government is yet to pick up the legal stick and start to make our legislation fit for purpose.

So, despite an open letter to our government written over three years ago in which we make this same plea for enforcement, and despite their recently identifying the EHRC as the government body responsible for monitoring and reporting inaccessible websites, they still have no plans to do anything about enforcement as far as we’re aware.

The next 10 years of accessibility

So the guidelines that help companies achieve inclusive, flexible and functional websites that are better for everyone are ten years old this month. Happy Birthday WCAG2.0!

Looking ahead, it would be fantastic to think that the next ten years might bring a real increase in companies embracing these guidelines and building websites and mobile apps that don’t exclude many and are better for everyone. Unless the government joins the party, however, I’m not sure whether this will be the case. Let’s let them get Brexit out of the way (and that might take longer than anyone thought) but not lose sight of the fact that we need this to happen – and the sooner the better.

So Merry Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year. May you keep all your resolutions – especially if they relate to embracing inclusive design and getting the accessibility agenda off to a really good start in 2019.

Related articles:

6 quick checks for website accessibility

Government identifies body to enforce website accessibility - now will they step up to the task?

Open letter to government: Please ensure websites and apps comply with legal accessibility requirements

Technology is helpful in so many ways, especially in education, but sometimes we need to step away from it and take a break. Although it may seem a bit counter-intuitive technology can offer the solution to help you take a break from technology. There are some handy apps that will help you ‘take time out’, put down your phone and embrace real-world interaction and reflection.

With the introduction of screen time on Apple’s iOS12 I was horrified at my daily usage stats - one day I had picked up my phone 89 times! It got me thinking - if I wasn’t checking my mobile so much, what more could I be achieving with my day? Being on our phone is an integral part of work-life for many of us, but 89 times seemed to be much more than friends I had spoken to, and I wanted to try and change this habit.

The negative effect of technology on mental health

There have been many news stories about how social media and smartphones can have a negative effect on mental health. We are all guilty of posting our ‘best lives’ on Instagram and sharing how brilliantly we’re doing at work on LinkedIn.

Having your phone nearby can even have an impact in social situations, as reported in the BBC story ‘Is social media bad for you?’. The article reported that “those with a phone in eyeshot were less positive when recalling their [social] interaction afterwards, had less meaningful conversations and reported feeling less close to their partner than the others, who had a notebook on top of the table instead.”

So, there could be a good case for making better use of our time without the ties to social media and our smartphone. With this in mind, we’ve pulled together our best apps for positive mobile phone use that can also help you improve your time management.

Apps for positive mobile phone use

Moment

Simply put, your smartphone steals your time. Moment's purpose is to help give you back that time. Through short, daily exercises provided through Moment Coach, it can help you to use your phone in a more healthy way so you can be present for the parts of life that matter most. 

Aloe Bud

Aloe has been designed for daily check-ins and reflection, it covers all the essentials; from staying hydrated to maintaining relationships with friends, colleagues or your student co-hort and allows you to reflect on human interaction. 

Forest

This app gamifies leaving your phone alone. It runs as the lockscreen on your device and presents you with a sapling that will grow all the time the phone is left alone but will die if you unlock your phone before the timer runs out (typically 25 mins). The app works on the principals of nudge; rather than stopping you from doing something, it encourages you not to with simple rewards. Each successful tree (as well as any unsuccessful dead trees) are added to your personal forest.

You collect virtual coins with each successful abstinence that allows you to, for example, buy different species of tree to grow. For an additional incentive, the app-makers are also planting real trees as the virtual coins are spent in the app. It’s free on Android but around £2 on iOS.

Clockwork Tomato

This is a very simple pomodoro timer the main screen of the app features a clock face timer with representations of the 25 minute pomodoro and five-minute break.When the timer is started you get a ticking sound, but this fades after a few seconds. The app also tracks your ‘productivity’ by showing the amount of Pomodoros you have completed in a calendar. There are additional features such as setting activities as well as task lists.

For an online alternative you can use Tomato Timer.

AbilityNet can help

AbilityNet is a UK charity that helps people to use technology to achieve their goals. If you have questions about disability and technology you can call us for free on 0800 269 545 or email enquiries@abilitynet.org.uk.

1. In Norway, you can be fined €15,000 a day for web inaccessibility

Last year, the Norwegian government threatened to fine Norwegian airline SAS 15,000 Euros a day if it didn’t improve its web accessibility. Robin Christopherson and Ellie Southwood gave a compelling argument on why the UK government needs to do more to penalise companies who are excluding disabled people from their websites.

Find out more about Robin and Ellie's talk. 

2. Apple spent loads of time adapting its fitness tracker for wheelchair users

Apple has carried out 3,500 hours of research across 300 different wheelchair users. This is to build fitness tracking into the Apple Watch for such customers. “This was the largest study of manual wheelchair users, including Paralympians, to see how calories are burned,” said Sarah Herrlinger, Apple's director of global accessibility policy and initiatives, in the opening session of TechShare Pro. “We created a new algorithm for this. This is not about compliance (with accessibility laws),” she said. “It’s about customisation.”

Find out more about the Apple Watch algorithm for wheelchair users. 

3. Google is working on Live Captioning for Hangouts

We don’t know much more than that at the moment. Christopher Patnoe, is senior programme manager at Google and was speaking at the event. He responded to an audience question about Live Captioning on Google Hangouts, saying the company is “working on it”. Google Hangouts offers group voice chat and sharing of videos, photos and other content. Deaf users would like to have the option to view live captioning of spoken words on their screen. At the moment, this exists via a volunteer or professional transcriber only. There is demand for live captioning to be built into Hangouts using artificial intelligence. 

Check here for updates on accessibility at Google. 

4. More than 50 people used the National Theatre's smart caption glasses in two weeks of launch

Jonathan Suffolk, technical director of the The National Theatre, London, gave an impassioned talk about the launch of smart caption glasses by the theatre this year. The glasses, designed and manufactured by Epson, are for theatre goers who are deaf or who have hearing loss. They broadcast subtitles to the user during certain performances at the theatre. Jonathan Technical Director, was buoyed to have had 51 people use the glasses in the first fortnight of launch. 

Find out more about the smart caption glasses on the National Theatre. 

5. You can use immersive virtual reality to be your own therapist

Those behind Freud-Me at Virtual Bodyworks use immersive reality to help people be their own therapist. We learned more about this and many more fascinating things from Sarah Ticho’s speech. Sarah is founder of Hatsumi, a new platform designed to ‘enable diagnostic and therapeutic intervention through creative expression and mindfulness, to reduce perceived pain and create a greater understanding of ourselves and others’. Sarah talked about Freud-me. Based on the principle that we are better at giving advice to others than to ourselves, users go into an Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) world to enter an alternate body. They can then give themselves advice to their own problems in a way which feels like someone else is helping them. A study shows that such a technique can be used to improve mood.

Find out more about the Freud-Me study and its results in this piece from Nature magazine.

6. 150,000 hours of TV was audio described, last year, but Goggle Box is tricky!! 

There’s lots happening in the world of accessible media. We learned some of the detail from a panel of experts from the BBC, Chanel 4, ITV. Audio description offers spoken detail of what’s happening on screen for those who are blind or have sight loss. There was a big commitment from all channels to bring audio description to more and more programmes and adverts across all platforms. But Channel 4’s representative admitted that audio describing Goggle Box is hard!

Find out the latest news on audio description on the RNIB website.

7. There are loads of jobs going in accessibility! 

Neil Milliken is co-founder of AXS (accessibility) chat and accessibility lead at Atos. A big social change agent, he’s trying to get accessibility on the agenda at Davos. He said he’s already taken this idea to the Canadian minister for accessibility. Neil said there’s a shortage of accessibility experts. “We need to grow the next generation of accessibility experts,” he said. “It would be great if we taught accessibility from a young age and it was a recognised profession.”

You can find Neil's presentation here. 

8. Kids are sending robots into school to represent them


OK, so technically we knew this already. Lewis Hine won an AbilityNet Tech4Good Special Award earlier this year. Teenager Lewis has a life-limiting condition. When he decided to reach out to others like him via Youtube to tackle the loneliness and isolation he felt, he received 50,000 emails in one day. Lewis was too poorly to attend TechShare Pro in person but in his place he sent his mum and also communicated with the room live via a robot from noisolation. The robot sometimes attends college for Lewis too.  

Learn more about No Isolation on their website.

9. Be My Eyes helps blind people understand confusing Japanese toilets!

There were plenty of laughs when Hans Wiberg, founder of Be My Eyes showed us one of the situations in which Be My Eyes has proved useful. The app, which links people who are blind - via an app - to sighted volunteers, can be useful in many situations. People have used it to see results of a pregnancy test and to get live narration to a Badminton game in which their child was competing. And, the one that got the laughs - to understand a series of complex diagrams describing the various functions of a Japanese public toilet.  

10. Lost Voice Guy thinks Simon Cowell is a nice guy

Up on the 30th floor of Barclays HQ, Canary Wharf, Lost Voice Guy got roaring laughs at TechShare Pro’s evening reception. Winner of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent, Lee Ridley’s condition - Cerebral Palsy - affects his ability to speak. He uses a voice synthesiser for his act. “The judges have been great. Simon is a nice guy. I’ve met them a few times and they’ve given advice and stuff.” He said he doesn't experiment with different voices because he's been used to having the same voice since he was a young boy. But joked that on a Tuesday evenings he sometimes uses a woman’s voice for fun.

Check out slides, videos and more from this year's TechShare Pro. 
 

Thanks to an Indiegogo crowdfund, the WeWALK smart cane designed for blind and visually impaired people is now in production. So far 1,500 customers in the UK, US and Turkey have ordered the invention. As one of the innovations taking part in AbilityNet's sold out TechShare Pro event in London yesterday, the team behind the product received plenty of positive feedback.

Ahead of the Canary Wharf event hosted by Barclays and supported by Google, Batuhan Demir, one of the founders, told AbilityNet more about how the smart cane works.

Hi Bhutan, what is WeWALK?

It’s a technology which fixes to a tradition white cane and enhances its capabilities for people who are blind or have visual impairment. Although technology has been steadily improving, the white cane has stayed the same for a hundred years. We saw an opportunity to enhance it.

We have created a ‘smart cane’ which attaches to the traditional white cane. It transforms the cane into an innovative smart cane with a number of features. These include an ultrasonic sensor which detects obstacles above waist height and gives off a vibration to alert users of obstacles, as well as detecting obstructions below, in the same way a standard cane does.

When paired with the WeWALK mobile application via Bluetooth, the customer can use apps with WeWALK’s touchpad voice menu without holding their phone. For example, they can request rides and get navigation on the WeWALK device via apps such as Uber and LYFT.

Tell us more about the technology involved in WeWALK?

WeWALK incorporates many cutting-edge technologies including a gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, directional vibration motors, microprocessor, touchpad, microphone, speaker and Bluetooth Low Energy module. It synthesises these technologies so that the user can easily access these features on one device.

WeWALK is currently integrated with Call Management, Google Maps and Amazon Alexa (in Beta mode). Soon it will be integrated with Voice Assistant, Uber and Lyft. These new features are installed through periodic software updates. With WeWALK’s touchpad, users are able to perform certain gestures just like using a smart watch and listen to the instructions and outputs via WeWALK’s speaker.

WeWALK has a voice menu that allows the users to control its integrations and features. For example, users can perform a gesture to listen to next GPS direction instead of taking their phones out of their pockets and check the next step via their phones.

Who is the team and funding creating the WeWALK?

The WeWALK team met seven years ago on a leadership development program at university run by the Young Guru Academy (YGA) - a non-profit organisation founded in Turkey. The Academy works on breakthrough social innovations in the field of technologies for the visually impaired. One of the previous projects includes My Dream Companion - a platform that aims to provide smooth and unlimited access to contextual and spatial information for the visually impaired. Our team has worked on various technologies for blind people and those with sight loss and have patented the WeWALK.

Most of the funding comes from WeWALK’s strategic partner, Vestel. Vestel is one of Europe’s largest consumer electronics company and WeWALK is being produced in their factory in Manisa, Turkey. Customers also paid a discounted price of $350 in advance via Indiegogo, though the updated cost is to be determined, we are aware of the fact that visually impaired people have a low-income level, thus, we will be doing our best to offer WeWALK in a way that people can afford easily.

For more on TechShare Pro, including videos and slides from the event, click here. More content will be added over the coming weeks and months. 

Ahead of the Accessibility Champions professional practice workshop at TechShare Pro, London, Emma Pratt-Richens (pictured), senior accessibility specialist at the BBC talks to AbilityNet about how the BBC is growing its network of accessibility champions.

The social school of thought or model of disability says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.

By removing those barriers you overcome the disability. So, we can actually make everyday life as accessible as we want to for people with disabilities, and tech and innovation play a huge part in this.

Around one in five people in the UK have a disability or impairment, according to the office for national statistics, which is set to rise due to our ageing population, so it’s crucial that all areas of society use tech to cater for people with disabilities.

This includes making services, such as the creative arts, accessible for everyone including people with so called ‘hidden disabilities’ such as hearing loss, which aren’t immediately visible to others, but exist none the less.

The societal impact of theatre 

Theatre has been a staple of society for many years now, it has many proven benefits of its patrons including enhanced imagination, increased self confidence and enrichment of social and societal knowledge. 

Theatre requires a diverse set of thinking and communications and relies quite heavily on technology. When we embrace diversity and accept the challenges of ourselves and others we can free up the barriers that may exist to the arts and allow inclusion to a much loved industry.

Innovative accessibility by the National Theatre

Arts and culture is an area that is making great strides in accessibility through developing innovative technology. For example, the National Theatre has introduced smart caption glasses, which offer a revolutionary new way for people with hearing loss to enjoy performances at the National Theatre.

Users can experience productions from any seat in any theatre. When wearing the glasses, users will see a transcript of the dialogue and descriptions of the sound from a performance displayed on the lenses of the clear glasses.

You can learn more about the glasses and making arts and culture accessible at Tech Share Pro 2018, where Jonathan Suffolk, Project Director at the National Theatre, will discuss this amazing new technological advancement.

TechShare Pro 2018, which is the UK's largest accessibility and inclusive design event, is organised by AbilityNet and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), sponsored by Barclays and Google. This year's theme is how we embed accessibility and inclusion in every digital project. 

Accessible arts and culture on display

At TechShare Pro 2018 you’ll also be able to hear from some other front runners in theatre who have made huge steps in the direction of inclusive design in arts and culture.

These include Richard Matthews and Lizzy Leggat from the Graeae Theatre Company. They will discuss the fantastic use of embedding inclusivity from the ‘get go’ of Graeae Theatre, working with disabled actors, and the use of inclusive tech in every production.

And Phillipa Cross, from Talking Birds, will look at the process Talking Birds went through in designing their ‘difference engine’, and how from every challenge comes a creative opportunity.

For the second year running Tech Share Pro has sold out 2 weeks before the show! Don’t worry if you haven’t got a ticket, we’ll be sharing loads of great content and insights on the AbilityNet website and you can follow the whole day on Twitter using #TechSharePro.

Google is a headline sponsor of TechShare Pro and the accessibility team is running several sessions during the day.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. More than 15% of the world’s population (that's 1 billion people!) have some form of disability (WHO).

Don’t consider yourself part of that 15%? Accessibility still affects you as this number does not include the aging population, temporary disabilities (such as a broken arm) or situational disabilities (such as driving). Accessibility affects everyone -- and this is why it’s important to build with accessibility in mind from design to implementation and beyond.

The Google Accessibility team works with partners and users to build a strong community. Through this community, our user research team is able to conduct in-depth product research and gather valuable user feedback to ultimately help shape the future of Google’s products. 

Because of this, we’re able to design products such as the Google Home and Assistant, a hands-free smart device ready to help with playing music, cooking, adjusting your thermostat, turning on your favorite shows and much more. Learn about all of our products at google.com/accessibility and follow us on Twitter for the latest announcements (@googleaccess).

We’re excited to be participating in the TechShare Pro 2018 conference as our hope is to raise awareness of Google’s values and processes with regards to accessibility and to continue to foster new partnerships which can ultimately help to build better products, built for everyone no matter their disability. 

The Google Accessibility Team

Christopher Patnoe

Sr. Programs Manager, Accessibility 

Kyndra LoCoco

Partner & Community Programs Manager

Andrea Wong

User Researcher, Accessibility

Melissa Barnhart

User Researcher, Accessibility

Kiran Kaja

Search, Assistant & News Accessibility Lead

Over the past couple of years we've seen a transformation in the way that people are interacting with technologies. There's a great sense of excitement and anticipation in the realm of enabling technologies.

As a low vision person, I'm constantly using smart technologies to help me live a more fulfilled and independent life, at work, at home, as a parent and in my leisure time. And TechShare Pro 2018 has me excited about a whole range of interconnected possibilities across the piste.

Since 2000, TechShare events have provided a unique platform for learning and collaboration. This year I'm particularly keen to explore the approach taken by Google with their new Lookout app. I'm also very really interested in tracking the latest developments in conversational interfaces.

Accessible mainstream products are one absolutely crucial element of our smart connected future. But TechShare Pro highlights the fact that collaboration and partnership are key to enabling new possibilities.

Our future world will be one where accessible mainstream technologies seamlessly combine with thoughtful bespoke solutions in hardware, software and services. Artificial intelligence and machine learning clearly have an enormously important role to play in realising this aspiration.

Technology is a great liberator and for me personally, it's the biggest single catalyst for more inclusive living. But in all of this we mustn't forget the human element. The true realisation of the benefits that tech can bring requires us to collaborate, learn, exchange and inspire one another.

The powerful combo of feature-rich, capable AI-driven tech and real human understanding will ultimately enable so much more than technologies can in isolation. Yes, the future is bright, exciting and filled with possibility.

AbilityNet Trustee Kush Kanodia has been announced as one of the top 10 most influential Black, Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders in the UK tech sector. The list, produced by board appointments firm Inclusive Boards, will be released today at the House of Commons as part of the official launch of the Inclusive Tech Alliance.

The Alliance has been set up in response to new research by Inclusive Boards that will show the sector is significantly lagging behind others on diversity within senior leadership. The founder of the Inclusive Tech Alliance (ITA), Samuel Kasumu, who is also a member of the Prime Minister's Race Disparity Advisory Board said: "Technology is increasingly playing an important role in driving our economy and there is a great need to ensure that everyone can fully participate in the jobs and opportunities technology brings. Kush Kanodia and others featured in this list today are role models that will inspire the next generation, and hopefully help to improve diversity within the sector."

Kush Kanodia said: "I am truly honoured and humbled to have been selected in the top 10 most influential BAME tech leaders in the UK in Parliament today, and to have been featured in the Financial Times. I am a disabled BAME champion, who had both my hips replaced (CAD CAM) in 2002 and am only able to walk today due to assistive technology. I had the honour of being a Torch Bearer for the Paralympic Games in London 2012. Selected due to my dedication to disability rights and my ability to inspire, I have delivered speeches in Parliament and was selected as a role model for the Office of Disability Issues in Government. I am a Social Entrepeneur, who has developed a portfolio career helping several organisations from charities and social enterprises to non-profit organisations. With a passion for innovation, design and technology and a belief that the Social Model of disability combined with the innovations in Assistive Technology can have a transformational and sustainable impact, that can both enable and empower the lives of disabled people globally."

Those featured in the top 100 include senior leaders from Facebook, LinkedIn, IBM, Twitter and financial services firm EY. Judges include Tim Sawyer CBE (COO, Innovate UK), Sandra Kerr OBE (Race Equality Director, Business in the Community), and Catherine Muirden (Director of HR, Co-Op Foods).

Using machine learning to recognise the delicate nuances of British Sign Language (BSL) isn't easy, but now the University of Surrey is hard at work cracking the challenge with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

BSL in a nutshell

For anyone who isn't familiar with BSL it's a language in its own right used by people with a hearing impairment. It comprises a complex mixture of hand gestures, facial expressions and body posture. Add to this the fact that the grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure of BSL is very different from spoken or written English, and it soon becomes clear that the technical challenge of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to observe a signer and translate BSL into the written word is difficult in the extreme - let alone capturing the subtle changes in emphasis and emotion conveyed by the signer.

We're still in the relatively early days of spoken speech interpretation - with all its regional variations, accents and slang - and yet being able to bridge the gap between the spoken and signing worlds would be even more impactful and life-changing for those with a hearing impairment and their friends and colleagues.

A collaboration to crack the signing challenge

A partnership comprising linguists from the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre at University College London, the Engineering Science team at the University of Oxford, and experts at the Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) at the University of Surrey will use the circa £1m grant to develop AI that will recognise not only hand motion and shape, but also the facial expression and body posture of the signer.

A bright future for signing and AI

“We believe that this project will be seen as an important landmark for deaf-hearing communications – allowing the deaf community to fully participate in the digital revolution that we are all currently enjoying" says Richard Bowden, Professor of Computer Vision, University of Surrey.

At the 'IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition' conference in Salt Lake City earlier this year, Professor Bowden’s team published a paper detailing the first AI and deep learning system that can perform end-to-end translation directly from sign language to spoken language.

“We are passionate about sign language at CVSSP," says Professor Bowden, "so much so that everyone who works in this area within our lab is asked to learn how to sign.”

AI is becoming smarter by the day. It won’t be long before the processors within our smartphones will be powerful enough, and the software smart enough, to do for BSL what free apps such as Seeing AI can already do in interpreting the visual and written world for blind users.

Who knows how quickly such tech will arrive for BSL users – but all the signs are good.

Related articles

Information and links to UK and International Deaf and hard of hearing websites

Wearable tech that interprets sign language

Other news and blogs from Robin Christopherson