Prof. Mohamed JemniProf. Mohamed Jemni

Research Laboratory LaTICE - University of TunisTunisia

MMS Sign Project Toward making mobile phones accessible for

Deaf

ICT Innovations WorkshopICT Innovations Workshop

• E-science, E-learning and E-accessibility• Accessible e-learning• Using ICT to improve communication

with Deaf – Project WEB SIGN– Project MMS SIGN

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Research Laboratory LaTICE – University of Tunis

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• Collaborating with W3C to promote web accessibility in the Arab World

• Arab version of the Guidlines WCGA 2.0www.utic.rnu.tn/wcag2.0

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Research Laboratory UTIC – University of Tunis

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• World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), confirmed that 80% of Deaf people lack education or are undereducated, are illiterate or semi-literate (2003).

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• Allow communication with deaf people using sign language via the web and internet.

• Automatic translation of written text to sign language.

• Development of avatar based system.

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• Non universality of sign language- More than 127 official sign languages;- T.S.E Tunisian sign language;- A.S.L American sign language.- L.S.F French sign language.

In the same country we can find some differences between sign languages.

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• Unavailability of open source tools for translation to sign language.

• Video based systems need an important bandwidth in addition to their costs.

• Difficulties of dictionary construction (time and cost).

• Animation of the avatar needs sophisticated programming skills.

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• - Construction of the dictionary: - a friendly of use graphical

interface to introduce signs

- No need to programming skills- collaborative approach: many people can

contribute in this task

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• Possibility of creation of a virtual community: - For every national/regional sign

language - a standard dictionary can be used as a

reference- An administrator for every community to validate/accept sign propositions- Multilanguage interface

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• WebSign can be used as a service witch translates text to sign languages.

• Developers can use it in order to create accessible applications.

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Demonstration

• Mobile phones are not accessible to deaf persons.

• More than 80% of deaf in the World are analphabet.

• They can not use the SMS technology.

VoiceorText

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• Our objective is to make mobile phone’s services usable and accessible to deaf persons.

• Our objective is to allow sending MMSs in sign language.

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DEMONSTRATION

World Summit Award (WSA) – Mobile 2010

Accessible 3D signing avatars: the Tunisian experience

Student Award 2012

Mobile Sign Language Translation System for Deaf Community

Web For All 2012

Professor Mohamed Jemni

Head of the Research Laboratory LaTICEUniversity of Tunis –Tunisia

Mohamed.jemni@fst.rnu.tnwww.utic.rnu.tn