Pakistan Sign Language

Enabling learning for the hearing-impaired

Services

Ethnography, Product Strategy, UI / UX Design
Lives impacted
0 +
0

Schools

Introduction

HOW IT BEGAN

Pakistan Sign Language (PSL) is Pakistan’s first online sign language dictionary which is extensive and free.

problem we were trying to solve

With approximately 10m people in Pakistan that having hearing difficulties, PSL aims to cater to the hearing-impaired by providing them a means to learn and augment their sign language vocabulary. 
They also aim to empower the instructors of the hearing-impaired, by providing them quick assistance whilst they are teaching.

our role

Our role with PSL was to ensure that children that wanted to learn sign language, were able to do so through a digital platform that would increase accessibility for them.

Design Process

In order for our team to take the dictionary digital: we had to understand human behaviour in regards to how sign language was being taught in classrooms.

We followed a Human Centered Design approach where we designed everything from the end-users perspective. This approach had to be co-creative so that all stakeholders were involved in the design process.
Pakistan Sign Language
Pakistan Sign Language
We visited several schools in Karachi, Hyderabad and Nawabshah to observe challenges that the students and teachers faced in teaching the Pakistan Sign Language.

It was essential for us to identify and understand the role digital played in teaching the language. Users pain-points included;
  • access to signs of words
  • searching for existing words
  • curating content to deliver classes

    • Pakistan Sign Language
    Pakistan Sign Language

    The Result

    We designed new ways of accessing words through easy
    to understand categories and search functions.

    In addition, users now had the capability to save and
    create play-lists for quick access to their favourite words
    and stories.
    PSL-Wireframes

    The Outcome


    The 1,000 PSL Learning Units distributed to-date in 192 schools in
    90 cities have impacted the lives of 63,492 students, teachers,
    families and entire communities.

    The social impact was acknowledged locally through an award from
    Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES (P@SHA) ,
    and earned global recognition with the World Innovation Summit
    for Education (WISE) Award     .

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