Exploring Iconographic Interface in Emergency for Deaf
Tânia Pereira, Benjamim Fonseca, Hugo Paredes, Miriam Cabo · 2011 · Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011) · doi:10.1145/2049536.2049589
Summary
This demonstration paper presents a mobile phone application that enables deaf people to communicate with emergency medical services using an iconographic touchscreen interface rather than voice calls. In Portugal at the time of publication, deaf people could only access emergency services through a series of SMS text messages — a slow and cumbersome process during a crisis. The application replaces text-based communication with large, high-contrast icons selected from reference symbology that guide the user through a structured emergency flow protocol. Users select icons to describe the emergency situation, including information about victims (number, condition), the type of incident, and the location (detected automatically via GPS or entered manually). The application then generates a coded SMS that is sent to the emergency control centre, encoding the user ID, victim information, incident type, and location. The prototype was developed for the Windows Phone 7 platform. Key design requirements included avoiding text usage to accommodate deaf users who may have limited literacy, supporting touchscreen input for people with mobility impairments, embedding standard emergency protocols to ensure integration with existing dispatch systems, and minimising network bandwidth by using coded rather than verbose messages.
Key findings
The paper presents the design and prototype implementation but does not include formal user evaluation results, as it is a demonstration paper. The application successfully implements an icon-based workflow that follows emergency service protocols, allowing a user to communicate the essential details of a medical emergency (who is affected, what happened, where it occurred) entirely through picture selection rather than text or speech. The system includes user registration to prevent false calls and enable caller identification, and supports both implicit (GPS) and explicit location entry. The iconographic approach also benefits hearing people who may be unable to speak during an emergency — for example, due to injury, shock, or being in a situation where speaking would be dangerous.
Relevance
This work highlights a critical accessibility gap: emergency services are overwhelmingly designed around voice communication, leaving deaf and hard of hearing people at a significant disadvantage in life-threatening situations. While many countries have since introduced text-based emergency access (such as text-to-911 in parts of the US), icon-based interfaces offer advantages over text for users with limited literacy, those under extreme stress, or non-native language speakers. For accessibility practitioners, the application demonstrates important design principles for crisis communication: minimising cognitive load through structured selection rather than free-form input, using universally recognisable symbols, automating location detection, and integrating with existing emergency protocols rather than creating parallel systems. Although the paper is brief and lacks evaluation data, it addresses a genuinely under-served need that remains relevant as emergency communication accessibility continues to evolve.
Tags: deaf · emergency services · iconographic interface · mobile accessibility · pictographic communication · SMS · touchscreen