Designing an Animated Character System for American Sign Language

Sign languages lack a standard written form, preventing millions of Deaf people from accessing text in their primary language. A major barrier to adoption is difficulty learning a system which represents complex 3D movements with stationary symbols. In this work, we leverage the animation capabilities of modern screens to create the first animated character system prototype for sign language, producing text that combines iconic symbols and movement. Using animation to represent sign movements can increase resemblance to the live language, making the character system easier to learn. We explore this idea through the lens of American Sign Language (ASL), presenting 1) a pilot study underscoring the potential value of an animated ASL character system, 2) a structured approach for designing animations for an existing ASL character system, and 3) a design probe workshop with ASL users eliciting guidelines for the animated character system design.