| Summary: | Magister Scientiae - MSc (Computer Science) === This thesis describes the development cycles of an authoring tool that generalises scenario
creation for SignSupport. SignSupport is a mobile communication tool for Deaf people that
currently runs on an Android smartphone. The authoring tool is computer-based software
that helps a domain expert, with little or no programming skills, design and populate a
limited domain conversation scenario between a Deaf person and a hearing person, e.g., when
a Deaf patient collects medication at a hospital pharmacy or when a Deaf learner is taking
a computer literacy course. SignSupport provides instructions to the Deaf person in signed
language videos on a mobile device. The authoring tool enables the creation and population
of such scenarios on a computer for subsequent 'playback' on a mobile device. The output
of this authoring tool is an XML script, alongside a repository of media les that can be
used to render the SignSupport mobile app on any platform. Our concern was to iteratively
develop the user interface for the authoring tool, focusing on the domain experts who create
the overall
flow and content for a given scenario. We had four development iterations, where
the rst three were evaluated for usability; for both pharmacy and ICDL course scenarios
with purposive sampling. The fourth iteration focused on using the authoring tool to design
an ICDL practise mobile app, recording the necessary SASL videos and using an XML
parser to render the designs XML script into an Android app. The research conducted
herein leveraged multiple approaches to content authoring and generalisation; and further
that software generalisation can improve accessibility and a ordability for the ultimate end
users. The thesis concludes with a summary of recommendations and lessons learnt.
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