InterWorld | Devpost

Inspiration

As a student interested in creating tech that's accessible for everyone, I was curious when I saw the theme and did research based on my own curiosity. I also focused on deaf/hard of hearing (HOH) people as it is something that affects me personally. While doing research, I found many alarming issues when it came to tech for deaf/HOH people:

Interpreters for ASL are not recognized as translators due to different grammar styles, etc. of the language
About 1% of the USA population can communicate in ASL, so there is a vast population that won't be able to understand deaf/HOH people just through ASL
Lip reading is difficult and frequently results in an inaccurate understanding of what’s been said

All these issues are important as they can bring many obstacles for this group of people. For example, not being able to communicate all their needs with their doctor or fully interpret what they are saying.

I specifically focused my research on speech transcription apps. The current market falls short in serving this population because of bad/outdated UI/UX design, takes too long to load/debug/understand the app functionality, language variety, and group setting distinction.

What it does

InterWorld is the solution & an all-encompassing app for speech transcription designed for deaf/hard of hearing people. It offers a variety of languages for real-time speech translation, a way for people to respond without pulling out another app, save their conversation for future reference, and group distinction. It is also easy to use for all age groups.

How I built it

I used Figma and other tools to create & design my prototype including IconsDB, iOS Widgets, and more! For future purposes, the app would use React Native, Python, and AI/ML libraries to generate the transcription.

Challenges I ran into

Due to working online, it was difficult to organize everything and make sure the user flow was efficient. Even now, I see areas where I could improve! I also was fairly new to Figma and wanted to challenge myself to work on design, so I spent time learning how to use Figma!

As I went along, I also realized that I could have made the colors more distinct/even more contrast to help with viewing it and there could be things I could change, but it would take too much time to change it.

I also didn't have time to do user research with the target audience, which is something I want to incorporate in the future.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Being able to create a functioning prototype! I am very proud of my results, especially considering the time I had to complete the prototype. I was also proud that I created something that could benefit a population that is usually not designed for!

What I learned

How to use Figma, how to think like a UX/UI designer more, and how to keep the development of the app in mind while designing (using my background in CS & sociology). I also learned how to improve my UX research for the problem at hand!

What's next for InterWorld

I plan to:

Build the app with Swift, Python, and AI/ML libraries to generate the transcription
Test with users who are deaf/hard of hearing to further improve the features and user design
Even more languages!
Replace the placeholder text
More features & clean up
User login to access all the saved conversations in one place
Edit the design if I need to (for mobile app development)