Enssat: wearable technology application for the deaf and hard of hearing

Abstract

A large number of people around the globe experience hearing difficulties of varying degrees. Therefore, recent research has focused on developing applications and systems to aid the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH). Wearable devices have significant potential in assistive applications owing to their low cost and lightweight. Wearable devices help the DHH perform their daily activities easily without requiring assistance from others. We present Enssat, a bilingual (Arabic/English) smartphone-based hearing aid application that uses Google Glass to assist DHH individuals. The application performs important tasks: real-time transcription, real-time translation, and alert management. A user study was performed to evaluate the application. In this study, 10 DHH users evaluated the processes of transcription, translation, and alerting and 15 non-DHH users evaluated the translation function of the system. All of them evaluated the usability and effectiveness of the Enssat application. The results demonstrated the ease of use and utility of the application.