Pitch Deck Outline

IDENTIFYING THE TOPIC

• Problem - The limited accessibility to services and the exclusion from the ability to communicate, cause a large division between deaf and hearing people within the scholastic and professional workplace. Of a total population living in the United States, 44.4% of individuals with a severe to profound hearing loss did not graduate from high school and 75% of deaf workers are unemployed.

• Question - Though UX design*, how can I use current interactive technology to enhance communication between those who know sign language and those who do not with the purpose of narrowing the gap between the deaf and the hearing?

* (product strategy, cultural probes, interviews, empathy experiences, heuristic evaluation, brainstorming, task analysis, card sorting, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing)

• Goal - Design an environment that facilitates the building of stronger connections between the deaf and the hearing by empowering communication between people.

RESEARCH METHODS

• Preliminary - With the goal of gaining knowledge on the Deaf community and having access to quantitative statistics that show the existing divide between the deaf and the hearing I conducted a preliminary research. 
• Findings:


• About two to four people, out of a total of 1,000, within the United States identify themselves as "functionally deaf;" meaning that they are deaf or hard of hearing.
• Of a total population living in the United States, 44.4% of individuals with a severe to profound hearing loss did not graduate from high school.
• Of a total population living in the United States, 75% of individuals with who are deaf or hard of hearing workers are unemployed.

• Competitive Research - With the goal of understanding available resources and existing technologies to allow those who are deaf to communicate with those who do not know sign language. 
• Findings:


• AWS DeepLens: a platform that will allow Alexa and other voice interfaces to understand the ASL alphabet.
• MotionSavvy UNI: a platform which allows a two-way communication between speech and sign language.
• ISEEWHATYOUSAY & Ava; platforms with the ability to capture spoken language and convert it into text.

• Empathy Experience - With the goal gain further insight into the problems experienced every day by a person who is deaf or hard of hearing I have conducted an empathy experience.
• Findings:
• amount of lost information
• amount of lost communication

• Secondary
• Qualitative - create and gather qualitative data through interviews conducted to SME and DME (to do)


• Quantitative - create and gather quantitative data through a survey (to do)


• SME:
• Maurizio Tegoleto
• Maurizio is a family friend who was born without the ability to hear. He grew up in a Deaf family and learned how ILS (Italian Sign Language) at a young age. When he was enrolled in primary education he had to learn how to communicate with his peers and took courses in speaking and lip reading. Today, Maurizio works at Saima and in involved with the Comune of Arezzo advocating for the Deaf community. 
• http://www.comune.arezzo.it/il-comune/servizio-sociale-politiche-educative-formative-sport/albi-del-terzo-settore-volontariat-cooperative-e-promozione-sociale/cooperative
• DME:
• Amara Hulslander
• Amara is a UX Designer and professor. Her work focuses on product interusability, user experience design, and user research. She is currently working for Amazon as a Customer Electronics Retail Technology UX Designer and teaching Interactive Design at The University of Colorado Denver.
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/amaravp/

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

• Sketches - to do
• Wireframe - to do
• Prototype - to do
• User Testing - to do

THESIS

• Installation – to do
• Printed Book – to do