Conceptualize an app which visually conveys train speaker announcements to Gian Reto!

 
Man standing in front of a wall.

Image description: Man with bright-brown hair, glasses and a blue jumper standing in front of a white wall.

 

About Gian Reto

Gian Reto is deaf since the age of two after he fell ill with meningitis. He is passionate about assembling various buildings with legos, either according to instructions or creatively on his own. He owns a GA and commutes to work by public transport. But he also enjoys to use the public transport to travel around Switzerland and discover new beautiful places. Since he cannot hear the announcements on the train, it is difficult for him to find out why a train is slowing down or to notice when all passangers are getting off. In these cases he needs to help himself, for example with the SBB mobile app.

Challenge

In this project, the goal is to develop a concept how announcements on trains can be made accessible for people with hearing loss. When Gian Reto travels with public transportation, he often misses crucial information regarding the next stop, connecting trains, or chages in the schedule that are only communcated trough speakers. He is therefore looking for a way how this information can be presented to him such that he knows if the platform of a connecting train has changed next time he travelles. This challenge will be supported by SBB.

Solution

For this challenge, Gian Reto and the 5 Hackers got support from 2 other people with a hearing impairment, 2 sign language interpreters and several SBB employees. Together we set a clear goal on Friday evening: We wanted to focus on pre-scripted announcements that normally are read aloud by train conductors when prompted by the SBB central control. These needed to be forwarded as clearly understandable as possible to passengers with hearing disabilities.

After 48h of intensive work, the team presented a complete prototype for a new feature of the SBB inclusive app. Via beacon, the train one is on is identified. The announcements for this train are located by the app. A vibration alerts the traveler that an announcement is in progress and the most important information is displayed in the lockscreen. If the traveller wants more information, they can click in 2 steps to first display more information in the lockscreen and in the second step switch directly to the app, where all information is displayed chronologically in easy language and with icons.

 
 

Video description: A man wearing glasses and a blue jumper, signing the words: “Hello! My name is Gian Reto. That's my sign name. I am deaf since the age of two. I love travelling by public transport, for example with the train or the bus. But I can't understand the announcements from the loudspeaker. How can we solve this? Do you have an idea?”