A Chat App for the Deaf Blind - Good Vibes Web

• 

• 

  A UI Design of the upcoming version of this App, I call it Serenity

Inspiration

Recently, Samsung came out with their revolutionary Good Vibes app which helps the deafblind community to communicate normally abled people like us. Now when Samsung came out with this app, I was very impressed by the efforts Samsung made in order to make lives brighter for the unfortunate ones who cannot speak or hear. About 90 million people in India, are deafblind and an app like this could make so many lives easier. But one thing that kept bugging me about the app was the fact that it is only available on Android and apparently only on Samsung devices, which makes it much more less accessible than web. This got me thinking why not let's create a web version of the app, in that case, anyone with any kinds of smart phone could access the app. And that's how I came up with the idea to work on this project.

What it does

The Good Vibes Web App is a PWA which uses morse code in order to help communicate with people. All that the person with disabilities needs to do is simply tap on the screen of their devices in morse and it automatically gets converted to readable english language. Once done writing the message, the person can swipe on their phones in order to send the message which the caregiver or the person's family would receive on their smartphones as normal text messages. Now to reply to the message sent by the deafblind person, the normal person can easily type a text and send it back to the deafblind person. When the deafblind person receives a message, the phone vibrates in morse code for the deafblind person to interpret the message. In case the app is not open in the deafblind person's phone at the moment, it would vibrate in rhythmic patterns to denote that a new message has arrived.

How I built it

Since this is a PWA, for the functionality of the app, like to enable swipes, special touches and gestures, I used jquery. I had to modify jquery a little bit my way in order to get it working. I used JS navigator APIs in order to make the phone vibrate in morse code. Pure JS to convert normal english to dits and dashes (Morse Code) and vice versa. I also used Responsive Voice APIs in order to make the App speak out the texts that had just been sent and received.

Challenges I ran into

Now when designing an app for the deafblind community, you need to keep in mind that the UI needs to be incredibly simple. I was not able to add buttons because of the reason that maybe the person would not be able to see the buttons at all, the reason why I had to design an UI which comprised of only swipes, touches and gestures to make it function the way I wanted it. I needed to make all of the text in the app bigger so that it would be easy for the person who has even the least vision. Now there was another problem that is the normal person would not want to use the same UI that the deafblind person is using, the reason why I had to design another chat UI in order to make it easy and fluid for the normal person to communicate with the deafblind person. I had to make the phone vibrate in morse code for the deafblind person to interpret normal messages. Also, the message gets converted to morse code text in order for the devices to understand morse code too. In the app, it's not just the deafblind people and normal people communicating, the mobile device also needs to understand what they are talking about, right?

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Well, this app did not win any awards or a lot of recognition, but still what I am proud of is the fact that I could make the web more accessible using this app. Now whoever might it be can easily communicate with each other. We always say that the with the improvement in technology, there is a great future ahead, but is it like that for all of us? That's what I am proud about, that is my project could atleast solve a very major problem, if it were more famous.

What I learned

Web development is no less than app development. Visiting a website is much more easier than installing setting up a 30MB app. JQuery and JavaScript are beautiful languages, you can do almost anything with these languages. We're in a world with billions in it and it is our responsibility to look out for each other, investing a little of our time in making someones life better instead of designing cutting edge tech would do no harm to the world but benefit us.

I learnt about how I can use gestures and tap holds on a website. It was a real challenge like I said before, I almost cried twice, but finally it worked. Had to pull an overnight to work on this project but the outcome is pretty good and I can't wait to take this project ahead soon.

What's next for Good Vibes Web

Currently I am working on a React version of this app, this PoC app was developed in 12 hours by me although with more time in my hands I can add firebase authorization in this which would allow multiple users and conversations at once. I also want to add a way to teach people morse code and spread the awareness of how important it is to learn Morse Code because everybody deserves to speak.

Built With

• css3
• firebase
• javascript
• jquery
• responsive-voice