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http://www.theeyeopener.com/storydetail.cfm?storyid=2363
In a futuristic, Ryerson-influenced version of the World Wide Web, a student scours the internet for research and comes across a video file. The user clicks "play" and a movie starts to load. As the student watches and absorbs the information, a blue box pops up on the screen indicating a link -- to a tinier video clip sitting just under the main movie. Click -- another webpage and another video stream.
Over the course of her web surfing experience, the student has acquired a few paragraphs of new knowledge without having to read a single block of written English. In fact, this student, who is also deaf, has done so without any seeing any text at all.
This is the World Wide Web as researchers envision it: a space in which users around the world can experience the internet without written language.
Developers hope the advent of "sign-linking" web technology will eventually spark an incarnation of the internet that is driven entirely by sign language content, thus giving the Deaf community its own "signed web." The advancement was developed as a partnership between Ryerson's Learning Technology Centre, the Canadian Hearing Society and the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Centre.
By building a text-free web, the Deaf community can finally have the online presence it should have always fully enjoyed, says the team that developed the online tool.
"The language of the web is English so we use English, and that's the problem," says Deborah Fels, the director of the Ryerson Learning Technology Centre and one of the researchers on the project. "Sign language is a unique language. You wouldn't tell someone else they don't have a real language and should learn English."
With sign-linking, information is presented in video format using sign language, but what sets the technology apart is the way it takes web links and translates them to sign language as well. When a chunk of video links to another page (or even another section of the same video), users are notified by a signal that can appear in the corner of the video or around its border. By clicking on the block or on highlighted video clips below the main scene, users can jump to other parts of the video or to entirely different sites.
"It allows sign-language speakers to join the web on their own terms," says Jan Richards, the U of T specialist who designed the user-interface prototype.
Sign-linking creators considered adapting what Fels calls "the more star-like representation" of the web's structure for sign language speakers. "The foundation of the world wide web is hyperlinking, that's what makes it the web," she says. It was the group's aim to make use of the internet's "non-linear" structure in an accessible way for the Deaf.
Hyperlinks (usually shown as underlined text on websites) enable users to jump to another page connected by the web. But in most pages using sign-language video, a user who wants to navigate to another link is forced to read the accompanying print translation.
The problem with that is "a lot of deaf people who speak sign language from early on don't read or write very well, and that's something the non-deaf don't understand," says Fels.
That's because sign languages are unique from their written forms, with different sentence structures and syntaxes. Up until sign-link developments, a deaf user would have to switch from one language (a sign-language video) to a completely different language (a text translation) if he or she chose to move to a hyperlink.
"If you were Chinese," Richards explains, "why should you need to know English to read a webpage?"
Jim Hardman of the Canadian Hearing Society agrees. Sign language relies on visual cues such as facial and body movement, he says. "For example, moving your eyebrows up or down conveys the emotion of the sign being conveyed."
The sign-linking prototype uses American Sign Language. Other sign languages, such as British Sign Language (BSL) and Langue des Signes Québécoise (LSQ) are also widely used. Developers anticipate an online presence for each language community, but use American Sign Language (ASL) for the prototype.
Fels imagines the opportunities that sign-linking opens up for deaf professors around the world, who rely on interpreters to communicate complex academic language. "Your average interpreter is not going to understand some of this advanced language. We're building a sign page for deaf academics and they can make links to special signs so the interpreter can study those videos," she says. "Now they're prepared for a deaf academic speaking at a conference."
But while sign-link developers and some members of the community are excited about the technology, support isn't unanimous.
Michael Cyr, a third-year film student at Ryerson and a program director at Silent Voice, a non-profit organization for the deaf, isn't quite sold on the concept. Himself included, Cyr says the majority of the Deaf community is bilingual and communicates using both signed and printed languages.
What's more, text allows web users to scan for keywords, but sign-linking requires users to watch large portions of video before getting to the point. A student using the web for research is on a tight schedule. She needs to find her information quickly and easily. In situations such as this, Cyr says, he'd rather use a combination of text and video content.
"I'd be driven crazy by the format," he says. "I prefer to use web pages where navigation is convenient and less time-consuming." He'd also rather use sites that operate by a combination of video and text.
Cyr has acted in TV shows produced by Marblemedia, a company founded and run by Ryerson grads. Marblemedia built and developed the main site on which the sign-linking prototype is based.
Richards says culture will determine how sign-linking succeeds, and admits there's some reluctance to use this technology in the signed community. "The ASL community is a very face-to-face community; you're expected to put information on the web in a way that's not very face-to-face," he says.
But Cyr sees it more as a basic issue of human response time. Getting information from written text is much quicker than by video. "The use of two different (media) at once may be the answer to what the researchers in this project are looking for," he suggests.
But that isn't what the Canadian Hearing Society had in mind when it designed the text-free, sign-link prototype.
Although Richards doesn't see sign-linked video content being used in every possible situation, he says he could see the technology used for e-commerce, education and personal sites, but adds that "the sky's the limit." People can use this technology for any purpose they wish -- as long as they have the means with which to use it.
"We knew people weren't going to create these pages if they didn't have an authoring tool," he says. The building tool is available for free. "It's not as smooth as, say, Dreamweaver, but I can see it being used in the Deaf community."
Richards says more basic measures, such as text equivalents (captions and descriptions), will probably remain the most consistently used methods of ensuring that the web is accessible. Sign-linking, he says, is more of a way for sign language speakers to take ownership of the "signed web."
"It's sort of up to the Deaf community to take this and run with it, and do whatever they want with it."
In a futuristic, Ryerson-influenced version of the World Wide Web, a student scours the internet for research and comes across a video file. The user clicks "play" and a movie starts to load. As the student watches and absorbs the information, a blue box pops up on the screen indicating a link -- to a tinier video clip sitting just under the main movie. Click -- another webpage and another video stream.
Over the course of her web surfing experience, the student has acquired a few paragraphs of new knowledge without having to read a single block of written English. In fact, this student, who is also deaf, has done so without any seeing any text at all.
This is the World Wide Web as researchers envision it: a space in which users around the world can experience the internet without written language.
Developers hope the advent of "sign-linking" web technology will eventually spark an incarnation of the internet that is driven entirely by sign language content, thus giving the Deaf community its own "signed web." The advancement was developed as a partnership between Ryerson's Learning Technology Centre, the Canadian Hearing Society and the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Centre.
By building a text-free web, the Deaf community can finally have the online presence it should have always fully enjoyed, says the team that developed the online tool.
"The language of the web is English so we use English, and that's the problem," says Deborah Fels, the director of the Ryerson Learning Technology Centre and one of the researchers on the project. "Sign language is a unique language. You wouldn't tell someone else they don't have a real language and should learn English."
With sign-linking, information is presented in video format using sign language, but what sets the technology apart is the way it takes web links and translates them to sign language as well. When a chunk of video links to another page (or even another section of the same video), users are notified by a signal that can appear in the corner of the video or around its border. By clicking on the block or on highlighted video clips below the main scene, users can jump to other parts of the video or to entirely different sites.
"It allows sign-language speakers to join the web on their own terms," says Jan Richards, the U of T specialist who designed the user-interface prototype.
Sign-linking creators considered adapting what Fels calls "the more star-like representation" of the web's structure for sign language speakers. "The foundation of the world wide web is hyperlinking, that's what makes it the web," she says. It was the group's aim to make use of the internet's "non-linear" structure in an accessible way for the Deaf.
Hyperlinks (usually shown as underlined text on websites) enable users to jump to another page connected by the web. But in most pages using sign-language video, a user who wants to navigate to another link is forced to read the accompanying print translation.
The problem with that is "a lot of deaf people who speak sign language from early on don't read or write very well, and that's something the non-deaf don't understand," says Fels.
That's because sign languages are unique from their written forms, with different sentence structures and syntaxes. Up until sign-link developments, a deaf user would have to switch from one language (a sign-language video) to a completely different language (a text translation) if he or she chose to move to a hyperlink.
"If you were Chinese," Richards explains, "why should you need to know English to read a webpage?"
Jim Hardman of the Canadian Hearing Society agrees. Sign language relies on visual cues such as facial and body movement, he says. "For example, moving your eyebrows up or down conveys the emotion of the sign being conveyed."
The sign-linking prototype uses American Sign Language. Other sign languages, such as British Sign Language (BSL) and Langue des Signes Québécoise (LSQ) are also widely used. Developers anticipate an online presence for each language community, but use American Sign Language (ASL) for the prototype.
Fels imagines the opportunities that sign-linking opens up for deaf professors around the world, who rely on interpreters to communicate complex academic language. "Your average interpreter is not going to understand some of this advanced language. We're building a sign page for deaf academics and they can make links to special signs so the interpreter can study those videos," she says. "Now they're prepared for a deaf academic speaking at a conference."
But while sign-link developers and some members of the community are excited about the technology, support isn't unanimous.
Michael Cyr, a third-year film student at Ryerson and a program director at Silent Voice, a non-profit organization for the deaf, isn't quite sold on the concept. Himself included, Cyr says the majority of the Deaf community is bilingual and communicates using both signed and printed languages.
What's more, text allows web users to scan for keywords, but sign-linking requires users to watch large portions of video before getting to the point. A student using the web for research is on a tight schedule. She needs to find her information quickly and easily. In situations such as this, Cyr says, he'd rather use a combination of text and video content.
"I'd be driven crazy by the format," he says. "I prefer to use web pages where navigation is convenient and less time-consuming." He'd also rather use sites that operate by a combination of video and text.
Cyr has acted in TV shows produced by Marblemedia, a company founded and run by Ryerson grads. Marblemedia built and developed the main site on which the sign-linking prototype is based.
Richards says culture will determine how sign-linking succeeds, and admits there's some reluctance to use this technology in the signed community. "The ASL community is a very face-to-face community; you're expected to put information on the web in a way that's not very face-to-face," he says.
But Cyr sees it more as a basic issue of human response time. Getting information from written text is much quicker than by video. "The use of two different (media) at once may be the answer to what the researchers in this project are looking for," he suggests.
But that isn't what the Canadian Hearing Society had in mind when it designed the text-free, sign-link prototype.
Although Richards doesn't see sign-linked video content being used in every possible situation, he says he could see the technology used for e-commerce, education and personal sites, but adds that "the sky's the limit." People can use this technology for any purpose they wish -- as long as they have the means with which to use it.
"We knew people weren't going to create these pages if they didn't have an authoring tool," he says. The building tool is available for free. "It's not as smooth as, say, Dreamweaver, but I can see it being used in the Deaf community."
Richards says more basic measures, such as text equivalents (captions and descriptions), will probably remain the most consistently used methods of ensuring that the web is accessible. Sign-linking, he says, is more of a way for sign language speakers to take ownership of the "signed web."
"It's sort of up to the Deaf community to take this and run with it, and do whatever they want with it."