12 – Tool to translate into easy language

September 23, 2024

The Lab

Logo Diakonie Kork

The challenge

People with disabilities have a right to participate in society. In this context, we as a society, Diakonie Kork as an organization for people with disabilities in particular, have the task of making the environment around those people barrier-free. As the barriers are very diverse and also occur in different ways depending on the disability, these barriers can only be removed bit by bit.   

A major barrier in everyday life is texts, signs, notices, letters (including those from the authorities) etc. in ‘difficult language’. As an organization for people with disabilities, we also struggle with this issue. An expert is always needed to translate documents, who then has to be hired at great expense. As a result, only a few texts, websites and other documents are translated into simple or easy language. 

Possible solution 

We have two target groups for this problem: employees and people in need of support. For both target groups, however, an AI-based solution that translates texts into simple or easy language by pushing a simple button on your laptop or Phone would significantly improve their living/working environment. Here are some application scenarios: 

For employee

There are often information sheets for upcoming events, important notices or other information such as protocols, concepts, etc. These must be created by administrative staff. In turn, care staff have to read out and translate the information sheets for people with disabilities, as these texts can only be created in easy language with a great effort. With a web-based tool, such as the one commonly used by translators for foreign languages, the text of the notice could be translated into easy language and made accessible to everyone. 

For people with disabilities

Imagine you are out for a walk in your neighborhood, you are walking through your company, or you want to go to the next shop to do your shopping and suddenly there is a new notice on the information board or in the shop window. Unfortunately, it is written in difficult language, and you need help to understand what it says. Fortunately, this can now be done quite quickly as we are all connected to smartphones, but only if you know someone, that person has time at that moment, and you are brave enough to admit that you need help to understand the text. As you can see, there are a lot of components that need to come together in order for your resident to understand, for example, that they have new house rules and that these differ from the old ones in some aspects. Ideally, you will then have an app on your mobile phone with which you can take a photo of the new house rules, and this app will translate the house rules into simple or easy language. Ideally, the user interface of the app itself is accessible so that you can use it yourself and don’t need any assistance. It would also be great if the app worked with the standard accessibility services offered by smartphone manufacturers or is offering them itself. This would be a real enrichment for disability assistance as well as for social assistance in general. Other use cases include letters from the authorities, invoices or contracts and much more. There are no limits to the imagination.

Boundary conditions

  • User interface should be easy to use, ideally tested with the target audience   
  • No add-ons → add-ons create barriers  
  • Compliant with the German Data Protection Act (GDPR) 

Existing technologies/systems to integrate the solution 

  • Would be great if it worked with symbol databases like Metacom, Boardmaker, etc.