We have designed novel assistive technologies with and for a marginalized and under-employed Deaf communities in Cape Town. These Deaf people are proficient and fluent in signed language, yet due to poverty and under-education exhibit limited functional literacy with written and spoken language when interacting with a hearing majority.

A multi-disciplinary and trans-university team is currently busy with iterative and incremental design and evaluation of a mobile tool suite that bridges information and communication gaps between Deaf and hearing people, in the language that these Deaf people understand: South African Sign Language (SASL).

There are currently two scenarios in prototype: Pharmacy and international computer driver license (ICDL) training. Diabetes care scenario and video breakout are works in progress.

We are generalizing this tool to handle
a) multiple limited interaction scenarios
b) multiple languages for illiterate users
c) multiple mobile platforms.