My Voice Library

The design challenge: There isn’t enough substantial and trusted data available for engineers and researchers to develop new innovative assistive technologies to enhance the lives of children with dysarthria and their families. The insight: Children get bored quickly making the type of data needed – voice data and facial movement data – incredibly hard to capture, especially from children with dysarthria. Our brief: How might we create an engaging experience for children and teens while gathering this vital data so that we can ensure children with cerebral palsy have the same rights, access and opportunities as anyone else in our society?

My Voice Library is a dysarthria data-capturing application that uses gamification to make collecting voice and facial data fun and accessible. The application, designed with simplicity and calmness in mind, encourages children to participate using fun facts and educational did-you-knows that contain specific words and phrases required for dysarthria research. Players record themselves saying the required words and phrases via webcam. They level-up with each recording entering new themed worlds while collaboratively contributing to the overall voice library. Biomedical engineers, speech pathologists, and researchers will use the data to develop technical solutions for children and teens with CP and dysarthria.

Over 50% of children with cerebral palsy have dysarthria resulting in impaired speech, often making verbal communication nearly impossible. The goal of Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA) is to support development of assistive technologies that help children living with dysarthria. By designing and building My Voice Library, we have audio and visual information that did not previously exist. The data is securely stored and accessible by engineers, researchers, and technologists who can test and train their assistive technologies using machine learning. Researchers will now be able to analyse the data, make recommendations, and establish a technology research program.

Collecting this kind of data can be dry, time consuming, and strenuous for children with dysarthria - even for children without dysarthria! Through our discovery and testing phases we learned that in order to design an enjoyable solution for children we needed to make the following design considerations: - A gamified solution to keep children engaged during the collection of the 181 words, phrases, sounds and movements in the Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment (it needed to feel like a game not an assessment). - Points and levels that keep players coming back. - A simple layout so children can focus on one task at a time. - Tasks broken into clear steps using simple, direct language to help with comprehension. - Give players the flexibility to choose how they move through the game. - Provide a two minute ‘brain’ breaks to ensure that data is not compromised through fatigue, and that users remain focussed on the task. - Relatable characters and positive feedback to build trust with our players and boost self esteem - Gender and age neutral design atheistic to appeal to a wide range of children