App MyGroup is Changing How Deaf People Communicate, and Encouraging Allyship in The Process
By Brandon Isobe
My father is deaf.
Oftentimes, group discussions are difficult for him to follow along with because nobody in his immediate family is fluent in ASL. So my father and I decided to work together to come up with a possible solution, leading to development of the App MyGroup application. My father can use this app to hire an interpreter when he needs one for family or casual settings.
As a deaf person, it’s hard to find yourself as the only one at a family dinner with no way to understand what people are talking about. Your family members, friends, and even coworkers want to connect with you, but they might not know how, or even know where to hire an interpreter…
App MyGroup helps hearing people communicate clearly with deaf friends and/or family members. This app is not for medical or legal use. We only use Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) certified interpreters in our network. The interpreters are paid through the app when the job is completed.
What We Learned Along The Way
Always be willing to start over.
This is the fourth app my dad and I have worked on. We have iterated through the development of numerous apps to end up with App MyGroup. The focus and goal of these apps were to help my deaf dad to communicate with hearing people, but we would not have predicted we would have ended up with App MyGroup.
Our first app was called “App MyVoice” and it had pre-recorded audio tracks that my dad could select from. It would say things like, “Hi, I”m deaf. Do you mind trying this app with me?” It worked well, but the response we got from the deaf community was they wanted something more customizable. This led to “App MyTalk”, where deaf users could type in whatever they wanted and it would use text-to-voice so the deaf person is heard. The issue with this one is, while deaf people can type what they want to say, how will they be able to “hear” what the person is saying to them in response?
So this evolved yet again to one of our other active apps called, “App MyEar”. It converts voice to text in real time and it also has text to voice capabilities. It has been well received in the hard of hearing and deaf communities. However, even though “App MyEar” helps my dad understand what is being said around him, it was still difficult to handle group situations. This is what led to App MyGroup.
We realized the only way to have my dad involved in a group conversation was to have an ASL interpreter. Since my dad is in Hawaii, we did not want to be limited to Hawaii interpreters and did not want to have to have them commute to interpret in-person. When we realized that a virtual solution did not exist on mobile devices, that is what led us to create App MyGroup.
As I mentioned earlier, my dad lives in Hawaii and there are a lot of localized or geographically specific signs. We wanted to find a way to get the best interpreters who could adapt to the unique vocabularies of each user. This led us to the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, whose certified interpreters now work with us to make their services available through the app. Initially we were matching requests regardless of geographic location, but that was challenging because some interpreters might not be familiar with the ASL sign for Waikiki or Ala Moana Shopping Center or Kaneohe, etc. We improved upon this by matching users to interpreters within a widening radius, hoping to ensure that they match with someone as close to the deaf person’s location as possible. This type of intelligent matching has helped a lot to have someone familiar with localized signs and with improving the quality of connections.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), “more than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents”. The data shows there are many deaf children born to hearing parents, just like my dad was. We are hoping hearing people can be allies to their deaf family, friends, and colleagues by initiating the app and showing they want to connect with them at parties or get-togethers.
This app could greatly benefit the hearing family members, friends, or coworkers of a deaf person; CODAs (child of deaf adults) who want to have a professional interpreter; or those who know some ASL but do not have the advanced level needed for in-depth conversations.
My father, Gerald Isobe, shared his experience using App MyGroup to connect with his daughter-in-law about her father passing away. He was able to get an interpreter in only 10 minutes through the app and have a 20 minute discussion with her. In his words, “it was better to get the information directly through a professional ASL interpreter, instead of having to ask my son, daughter, or wife what happened.”
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