My motivation comes from my want to further understand my sister, whom is nonverbal. Throughout my life, I have witnessed how she was ignored and judged for her differences. After seeing her repeatedly ignored, I hope more people try to understand and offer her their friendship. I want to build a stronger relationship with my sister while seeing her included in the same social interactions I receive and see people say hello to her too. My goal of this project is to better social networks that lead to companionship with people with various communication needs. I hope that people who have never interacted with someone with nonverbal autism that they understand that they want to be included and want to be their friend too. That their vocalizations do not mean that they are not interested or have little to no social interest. Instead, it could be expressions of joy.
I realize that for my sister, and other people who are nonverbal, people speaking for them is considered normal or even, expected. How can I include my sister and those who are nonverbal in conversations as well? They want to be included too. They want friends too. On a personal level, I am motivated to better myself in building relationships with those with different communication abilities. I hope that with the development of Euphemia, it can help me and others see life through different perspectives and grow understanding for others.
I hope that through Euphemia, I can try to design for needs and abilities. I want to fill any technological limitation users may have through the phone itself. The mobile application must accommodate different needs and is responsible for creating an accessible experience that allows its users to connect with the people around them.
It is highly relevant to study the experience of nonverbal communication in virtual and physical spaces. The opportunity to be heard and to hear are prerequisites for a sense of connection and belonging with others. Through my research, I open up the conversation of what it looks like to include someone who doesn’t know how to speak a spoken language. I investigate how communication is represented on iPhones and demonstrate that it is important to provide Ms individuals with the right AAC tools but also just as important to invite verbal, non-users of AAC devices to learn how to meaningfully converse with Ms individuals. How can AAC users initiate deep conversations with their own vocabulary words? What could be an AAC that accommodates all individuals, nonverbal or verbal? In future extensive research endeavors, I hope that AACs can capture the essence of nonverbal communication to contribute to a society where all voices are heard and listened to.
- SF Design Week: https://sfdesignweek.org/awards/euphemia/
- Euphemia Repo: https://github.com/debbieyuen/euphemia
- XCode 14.2 or higher
- OpenAI API token (https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference)
- DeeplabV3 (https://developer.apple.com/machine-learning/models/)
Clone the repo
$ git clone https://github.com/debbieyuen/hummingbird.git