Verbātim: For the deaf and hard of hearing

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Verbātim

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Hello everyone,

I am a software engineering student out of Dallas, TX. After starting school, I became interested in mobile application development, and began self study in that area of expertise. In the year since I started teaching myself mobile programming, I've managed to progress enough to have two applications available on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

The one I'm here to tell you about is called Verbātim. It's a utility app for the deaf and hard of hearing. Verbātim is an idea that I stumbled upon after I finished my first app, and decided to develop it because I believed it could be very useful for someone out there (hopefully more than one :lol:).

Verbātim is FREE and available for phones and tablets running Android or iOS! It's only available in English right now, but I plan on expanding the languages very soon. It can be found on Google Play and the Apple App Store in the U.S, Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

I won't say any more because all the information about the app can be found in the app stores, and I'd like for people to check it out. If you do, and you like it, please tell people about it that may find it useful as well!

Here are the links to the app stores and the Facebook page:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.erickalexanderfranco.verbatim2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/verbatim/id948490849?ls=1&mt=8

https://www.facebook.com/TeamVerbatim
 
Verbātim said:
Hello everyone,

I am a software engineering student out of Dallas, TX. After starting school, I became interested in mobile application development, and began self study in that area of expertise. In the year since I started teaching myself mobile programming, I've managed to progress enough to have two applications available on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

The one I'm here to tell you about is called Verbātim. It's a utility app for the deaf and hard of hearing. Verbātim is an idea that I stumbled upon after I finished my first app, and decided to develop it because I believed it could be very useful for someone out there (hopefully more than one :lol:).

Verbātim is FREE and available for phones and tablets running Android or iOS! It's only available in English right now, but I plan on expanding the languages very soon. It can be found on Google Play and the Apple App Store in the U.S, Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

I won't say any more because all the information about the app can be found in the app stores, and I'd like for people to check it out. If you do, and you like it, please tell people about it that may find it useful as well!

Here are the links to the app stores and the Facebook page:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.erickalexanderfranco.verbatim2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/verbatim/id948490849?ls=1&mt=8

https://www.facebook.com/TeamVerbatim
Click to expand...

I am going to test it with TV to see if it matches the Closed Caption.
 
Hello SilverRoxy,

That's an interesting way to test the app. I myself have not tested in that manner, and it's for a specific reason. The speech synthesis (speech recording) on mobile devices isn't quick enough to pick up speech at such a fast rate, at least not completely. I've programmed the app to ask guests who are responding to speak slowly and clearly in order to be as accurate as possible the first round of speech recording. Let me know what kind of results you get from your test, I'd really like to know! Thanks!
 
Verbātim said:
Hello everyone,

I am a software engineering student out of Dallas, TX. After starting school, I became interested in mobile application development, and began self study in that area of expertise. In the year since I started teaching myself mobile programming, I've managed to progress enough to have two applications available on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

The one I'm here to tell you about is called Verbātim. It's a utility app for the deaf and hard of hearing. Verbātim is an idea that I stumbled upon after I finished my first app, and decided to develop it because I believed it could be very useful for someone out there (hopefully more than one :lol:).

Verbātim is FREE and available for phones and tablets running Android or iOS! It's only available in English right now, but I plan on expanding the languages very soon. It can be found on Google Play and the Apple App Store in the U.S, Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

I won't say any more because all the information about the app can be found in the app stores, and I'd like for people to check it out. If you do, and you like it, please tell people about it that may find it useful as well!

Here are the links to the app stores and the Facebook page:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.erickalexanderfranco.verbatim2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/verbatim/id948490849?ls=1&mt=8

https://www.facebook.com/TeamVerbatim
Click to expand...






There is no needs to made another post or thread about this . One is enough .
 
I'm a software engineering student out of Dallas, TX and this thread is about a mobile application project I just finished.

I have been doing some self study in the world of mobile application development for a little over a year now, and as I pondered new ideas for apps after I launched my first one, I stumbled upon the idea for the app I'm here to promote.

The app is dubbed Verbātim and is a utility app designed to aid people that are deaf or hard of hearing in the communication process with people that they don't know and can't communicate with using ASL.

The app uses the dictation and speech recognition capabilities of the latest mobile devices. It allows a user to type in messages to people, which can then be displayed on the screen and spoken aloud for the user's guest to read and hear.

The user can also take in a guest's response by recording a guest's feedback, which is then translated into text on the screen for the user to read.

It's a very simple app with what I believe to be a very large potential for usefulness.

The app is FREE and available for phones and tablets running Android (Ice Cream Sandwich or higher) or iOS (iOS 8 or higher; iPhone 4s or higher; iPads 3rd and 4th generation; all iPad minis). It's only available in English for now( working on localization to other languages ) and in the following countries: U.S.A, Canada, Australia, U.K.

Here are the links to the app store pages:

Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.erickalexanderfranco.verbatim2

iOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/verbatim/id948490849?ls=1&mt=8

If you check it out, please reply with your thoughts about it and any suggestions you might have to make it better. I'm a hearing person with no connections to anyone that is deaf or hard of hearing, so the app's logic (functionality) and purpose comes from what I've researched online and how I've imagined communication between a non-hearing person and a hearing person could be using a mobile device as the intermediary. I think I've gotten a good basic understanding of deaf culture, but there's probably a good amount of room for improvement and better understanding that can help me make this project stronger and more relevant.

Thanks friends!

#Verbātim
#For_the_deaf_and_hard_of_hearing

Like it on Facebook!

https://facebook.com/TeamVerbatim
 
No need to point it out publicly either- quick PM to him and/or report it.
 
Verbātim, you may explain what and how s about it on video (YouTube).
 
Hello Chevy57,

I haven't gotten around to making a YouTube video for the app. I've been pondering ideas on how to do so. I'd like to create a simple animation. I'll hop on it right away! Until then, the app is pretty easy to figure out. It provides a kind of guided communication that instructs the user on how to use it. There is also a user manual available that describes the functionality in more detail. Have you played with it?
 
Hello Hoh112,

I am neither deaf nor hard of hearing. I joined this community to try and make connections with people that are. I'm a software engineering student that has been studying mobile app development on my own time. I've built an app for people with hearing problems that I think could be useful. I don't know any people here in Dallas that are deaf or hard of hearing, so I went searching for ways to meet people like the ones in this community with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the culture and ask people to test my app and tell me if it's something that could be useful to them.

Where in Dallas do you reside? I'm in North Dallas, near North Park Mall.
 
Hey... I'm playing with this right now.

So far on the Android using the tv didn't seem to work too well (but then the mic on Galaxy s5 sucks...). waiting on iPad- as I have to download the upgrade to 8.0+ sigh.

Question... I wanted to have a way to NOT have the voice speak the greeting/instruction when I first start it. I wanted to have an option where the other speaker's conversation is 'translated' but I do not have to type back (as I can verbalize well enough).

i did try the speech to text (samsung so far) and 'testing' became casting in text...yikes lol. Google text to speech seems better...

Hmm guess I could just hit respond then arrow to go back to speech>text.. yup.

I may try this out at my interview on Friday... hmmm :hmm: it will be interesting to see how it will handle accents (specifically from another country).
 
Hello DeafDucky,

One reason speech recognition didn't work well with the TV is because the speech is too fast for the API to translate. This is why I've added an instruction, which plays before each recording session, that asks the guest to speak slowly and clearly for more accurate translation. For the most part, speech to text API's, whether Samsung's or Google's, all have some weaknesses and aren't always going to be 100% accurate; it's just something we have to deal with from time to time.

As for iOS 8, I'm sorry for the pain of having to update, but I had to make that a requirement. The iOS text to speech and Siri API's have only been around since iOS 7.0, and updating to iOS 8.0 makes for better functionality and accuracy with the voice engines because they have added patches to bugs in the earlier versions that caused several problems.

Can you clarify what you mean about not playing the instruction when you first start? I've included the option to play the greeting or not before playing a message you've typed and before recording someone's feedback. However, the instruction played before recording, which asks the guest to speak slowly and clearly for more accurate translation, will always be played, but will be shortened if you record speech more than once in the same conversation.

Also, when you say you'd like the option to record speech and not have to type back, you open my eyes to an aspect of the functionality that didn't occur to me before. So,(correct me if I'm wrong) you'd like to be able to record speech, verbally respond yourself, and go back to recording speech without having to go back around to the feedback button on the home main screen, choose the greeting or not, and then begin recording? Seems like I may have left out some useful functionality here. I'll take a look at that, but please verify if I understood you correctly.

I hope it worked well for you in your interview, if you decided to use it. As far as different accents goes, it's probably not going to be 100% accurate. Like I said in the beginning of this message, speech to text still has some improvements to make, but works well enough to make sense of a message, in my opinion.

Also, please share any more thoughts, suggestions or issues to point out that you may have for me. My goal is to make this app the best it can be, so that it may have real usefulness for you and anyone else that would like to use it. Thank you!
 
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hey!

Unfortunately I didn't get to use it today as had no time to...:( (long story but the short of it I was late anyway no thanks to another app- the googlemaps one grrr- that rarely happens...oh well).

Anyway...

1. the instructions-- the one where it says "after the beep, please speak slowly and clearly..." I get both the verbal (voice) and the text. What I wanted was possibly a way to turn off the voice part. I tried turning down the phone volume (or maybe mute) but that didn't affect it. While it is a good thing to have in some situations it may not be a good idea to have a voice speaking the instructions (plus points on the loudness lmao).

you'd like to be able to record speech, verbally respond yourself, and go back to recording speech without having to go back around to the feedback button on the home main screen, choose the greeting or not, and then begin recording?
Click to expand...
2. Yes- that's what I was meaning...really recording, then having to hit the back button to return to the recording screen.
steps:

1. open the app, tap on the red button
2. Go through instructions
3. have speaker speak...
4. deaf/HOH person reads
5. Here the next step would be to tap on respond to guest then type but if a person wanted to just verbalize/speak for themselves they would then have to hit the --> then hit Playback then record feedback or hit the back arrow to return to the recording function. Too many steps. instead there needs to be a way to have the user speak, then somehow allow the deaf person to just return to the "record" screen- or perhaps a "start recording"/restart recording button on the screen that shows the speech to text.

Hope that makes some sense... let me know if you'd like to see screenshots of how I imagined it (as I selected Hard of Hearing on opening the app).

What was the purpose of self identifying though? Selecting either didn't really impact on the workings of the app.

I'll be happy to play with it some more.. but maybe later lol.. I don't know how loud the voice is if anyone else in my house can hear it ;)

Oh.. No worries on the iOS- chances are eventually I would have been forced to upgrade anyway lol.
 
Hello again DeafDucky,

Thanks for the quick response! I'm really excited to finally get some feedback from someone using the app. The more feedback I receive, the more ideas I'll have about what people like about the app, what they don't, and how I might be able to make it better.

Now on to some of your concerns...

The verbal aspect of the pre-recording instruction has two functions. The first is to just add some functionality to the text on the screen; the second is to automatically proceed to the recording session once the voice engine is done speaking the instruction. The voice engine has specific controls I can access, one of which is making something happen when the voice engine is done speaking a line of text. Without verbally expressing the text with the voice engine, you (the user) would have to manually tap on the screen in order to proceed to the recording session or I would have to add a timer(functionality that is not currently part of the code). Is this part of the app a serious functionality concern or is it just a preference that has crossed your mind? I'm definitely going to note this down, but will wait to see if other users are coming to the same conclusion before I start rewriting the code. Thanks for pointing it out to me though!

As for the issue of not being able to quickly jump back into a recording session, I think you have a very good point. It's something that hadn't really crossed my mind because I felt that navigating back to the recording session point the way it's laid out now was fairly quick. However, it makes sense to make it an option to be able to jump back into recording feedback with the tap of one button. Therefore, I'm going to jump into my development environments and work on a solution to this. I'll probably just throw in another button. Thanks for sharing this observation with me as well! I'll keep you posted on any changes that are made.

Finally, we get to the self identification on the first launch of the app. I added this functionality because I felt that users might want to be more specific with how the app describes them through the informative greetings that are installed and used in the app. When a user chooses one or the other (deaf or hard of hearing) the app saves this preference, and anytime an informative greeting is used, the app uses text that either uses the word Deaf or the words H.O.H within the informative greetings, in order to more accurately describe the user with the more appropriate label. You don't notice any effects from the choice you made at first launch because the app is choosing to display the informative greetings that use the label you prefer to use for yourself. Just an aspect of the app that I thought would allow users to choose how they'd like to be described, instead of just labeling everyone Deaf, or hard of hearing.

Send me more thoughts you have about the app whenever you'd like, DeafDucky! I really appreciate you playing with my app and helping me make it better.
 
DeafDucky,

I've added an update to Verbātim for both Android and iOS that includes a fix for the issue of not having a quicker way to record guest feedback from the "Message To Device Owner" view, which you suggested to me. Thank you very much for that feedback! I totally agreed with your observation, and promptly proceeded to adding that missing functionality.

The Android update will be available tomorrow, Tuesday, February 3, while the iOS update will have to wait about a week a longer due to having to wait for approval from Apple before it's release.

Please review the change once it becomes available, and let me know if I've improved the functionality for you. Also, if you have any friends that may have a use for Verbātim, please tell them about it, and ask them to leave their thoughts and suggestions on here as well; I'd really appreciate it! The more feedback I get from users, the better I can make Verbātim for everybody ]:)

#Verbātim
#For_the deaf_and_hard_of_hearing
#TeamVerbātim

Like the app on Facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/TeamVerbatim
 
I will- will see how it goes :)

If i remember to I'll see about posting something on my FB lol. :)
 
I just tried to download Virbatim. I was told on link that it is not compatible with any of my devices. I have 4 android devices with either 5.X or 6.0. I am not able to bring it up in Google Play for any of them. I also tried on my wife's iOS. Still no go.
I am a hearing person trying to help a deaf high school student get lecture notes for her second language, English. Thought I would give it a try, but couldn't. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?
 
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