How would you feel if you weren’t able to communicate your thoughts or emotions through speech? Helpless, maybe! Well, there are more than 2 million American who’re currently diagnosed with a language-processing disorder which hampers daily communication. They communicate with friends and family with the use of drawings and picture boards. But, Samsung aims to eliminate the language barrier with the soon-to-become universal language — emojis.
The Korean giant, specifically its Italian subsidiary, has worked with several speech therapists to develop an emojis-based messaging application. Called Wemogee, this app replaces text phrases with a combination of emojis that help convey the same meaning as one would have said during a conversation. The primary aim of this project is to enable instant communication between aphasia patients and those they wanna engage in a conversation with. It can be used in long distance, as well as face-to-face interactions.
For those unaware with Aphasia, it is a rather complex neurological disorder affecting parts of the brain that understand and control speech synthesis in an individual. This is usually caused due to strokes, meaning the prominent cause are traumatic, hemorrhagic, or ischemic. More than 180,000 people are diagnosed with aphasia each year in the U.S, according to the National Aphasia Association.
While it is important to learn about the physical aspects of this disorder, the emotional consequences of the same are more hurtful. It leads to frustration and helpless among individuals as they cannot communicate their thoughts either by stuttering or writing words. They begin to build a protective shell around themselves, closing in and retreating from the world.
Samsung doesn’t want that. It wants the aphasic patient to stay connected and communicate with the lovely individuals around them. Thus, Wemogee will come in handy in such situations as the app works on a text-emoji transcription system. This means that you’re able to send messages in the text form but the app converts them into emoji combinations when it reaches an aphysic patient. This is especially simple as they can decode the message and reply with their own set of emojis, which translate to text on reaching you.
Describing the said system, the official blog post writes,
Aphasic patients identify what they want to communicate through a panel of exclusively visual options, sending the chosen sequence of emoji to the non-aphasic recipient. The non-aphasic user will receive the message in text form and can then reply using written words.
Samsung has developed an intuitive interface with just a single interaction point for users to begin a conversation. The app includes a repository of about 140 phrases, developed with speech therapists, which enable users to simply communicate with each other. These are the same phrases that’re converted from text to emojis and vice-versa inside the Wemogee app. All of these phrases are separated into six different categories to make it simpler for you to access — and express the right emotion. These include — eating and drinking, everyday life, anniversaries and celebrations, help, feelings, and recreational activities.
Currently, the Wemogee application supports English and Italian language and is only making its way to Android on April 28. An iOS and Samsung Galaxy version of the app is expected to release in the coming months. It will especially be useful for simple face-to-face interactions, where you can place a tablet on the table and chatter using emojis — something we’ve come to accept.
