Snapchat’s looking to help increase awareness and usage of sign language by introducing a new Lens that’s able to recognize American Sign Language (ASL) gestures and translate them in the app.
As Snap explains:
“We’re constantly working to expand the ways Snapchatters can express themselves and make connections through our Camera. Today, we’re launching an ASL Alphabet Lens in partnership with SignAll. It’s a first of its kind Lens experience that inspires Snapchatters to start learning American Sign Language!”
A to Z
The new Lens teaches users to fingerspell through various games and exercises within the app. The new Lens was built using Snap’s evolving hand-tracking technology providing more capacity for communication in various ways. Snap used the same technology to power a string of similar Lenses it launched last year as part of International Week of the Deaf. That event also encouraged users to fingerspell various words.
The new Lens aims to take whatever in-place measures a step further, providing more in-depth insight and examples to help more people understand the right usage of ASL gestures. It could be a good way to raise awareness and facilitate more inclusion. Meanwhile, Snap is also exploring more avenues where its hand gesture recognition tools would be applicable, which, again, helps expand communication for users with hearing impairments.
According to Snap:
“For native signers, in a world where linguistic inequity is prevalent, we believe AR can help evolve the way we communicate. We look forward to learning more from our community as we strive to continuously improve experiences for everyone on Snapchat.”
Life is never easy for those who are impaired, regardless of their impairment. True enough, impaired users are more a part of minority communities than they are of the general public, which is something that all social platforms should work to change. Offering expanded capacity for impaired users to better use platform features and functions will result in overall better engagement and reception.
The Wrap
It’s a good experiment and an even better way to get more people aware of sign language and the availability of options on the app. Users can even learn the basics through games and examples, which is a better approach seeing as how decreasing attention spans benefit from more interactive features, as opposed to simply having to read or even watch something. Snapchat is definitely on the right track in its development approach.
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