Is this idea I had ok?

[HD-MT]

Hello everybody, at the school I attend we are going to be doing a year+ long project about whatever we want, and for my project I thought it would be cool to make sign language gloves. I originally had this idea before I knew that people had already tried this, but after researching it a little I had some concerns, mostly because it seems like this idea is found offensive to people in the deaf/hard of hearing community. I feel that my idea differs from others enough that I wanted to get feedback.

I would like to say that I was thinking that the person using these gloves would be someone who is biologically mute, but can still hear, and it would be used in situations such as a court. I have a friend who's father is a nurse, and what he told me is that they have to pay translators around $100 or more an hour, and even if they don't use them for that whole hour, they still  have to pay them that much. The purpose I am intending with the gloves is to reduce costs for the business, and cut out the middleman.

 I know that sign language is more than just hang gestures, so I would also try and figure out a way to record expressions and other important movements. As part of our project we also have a stakeholder, or someone who would benefit from our project, and I was going to make sure that it involves someone form the ASL community. 

What are your guys thoughts on this, and if this is a good idea, what should I do to make sure its actually helpful.

Sorry if anything I said was offensive in any way, and thanks for your guys input.

 

[Cekncen]

That sounds interesting. This is the first time I've ever heard of this, so the concept sounds intriguing. Given I'm hearing, I don't know how the deaf community feels about it, but the concept seems more skewed towards the benefit of hearing people. Maybe, if you could figure out a way to also make a program of sorts that could help deaf people "hear" [or, rather see] what hearing people are saying without a translator, that would be awesome.

How about the concept of an app or website that is paired with the gloves that can also translate speaking to sign. I know sign is a very intricate language, so it'd really take some thinking about, but if you added the double benefit I think your idea could really take off!

Edited September 13 by Cekncen

[HD-MT]

19 hours ago, Cekncen said:

That sounds interesting. This is the first time I've ever heard of this, so the concept sounds intriguing. Given I'm hearing, I don't know how the deaf community feels about it, but the concept seems more skewed towards the benefit of hearing people. Maybe, if you could figure out a way to also make a program of sorts that could help deaf people "hear" [or, rather see] what hearing people are saying without a translator, that would be awesome.

How about the concept of an app or website that is paired with the gloves that can also translate speaking to sign. I know sign is a very intricate language, so it'd really take some thinking about, but if you added the double benefit I think your idea could really take off!

I think something that helps deaf people to "hear" what people are saying could definitely work. I'm not super sure on this, but from what I've researched there are glasses that caption what other people are saying. I was thinking something like that could work, or another idea I had was that the gloves detect what is being said, and turns that into a series of pulses or some sort of sensory input onto the fingertips, kind of like reading braille. The problem with that idea though is that the user would have to know braille, so it might not work super well.