Sign language interpreter module: Accessible video retrieval with subtitles

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a new approach to the integration of sign language on the Web. Written information is presented by a Sign Language Interpreter Module (SLI Module). The improvement in comparison to state-of-the-art solutions on the Web is that our sign language video has a transparent background and is shown over the existing web page. The end user can activate the video playback by clicking on an interactive icon. The mechanism also provides a simplified approach to enable accessibility requirements of existing web pages. In addition, the subtitles are stored externally in the Timed Text Authoring Format (TTAF), which is a candidate for recommendation by the W3C community. Empirical results from our evaluation study showed that the prototype was well accepted and was pleasant to use. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.