Real-time Subtitles (II)
My goal
To, from the ground up, build the subtitles application in a way that my friend and I would actually use
Role
Designer, engineer
Tools
Windsurf, Unity, Figma
Team size
2
Reason:
Our friend Geoff is Deaf, so when we go out he uses a transcription app on his phone to keep up with the conversation, and uses ASL to talk with myself or his wife to communicate to the rest of the table. This is great, except the phone doesn't know who said what, and translating back to Geoff is up to myself or Emily to make decisions on how to summarize or choose what was important.
This project:
Contrary to what seems to be the popular idea, this app actually helps hearing people feel more included in the conversation. When a hearing person like Sid can look at Geoff and talk to him directly, it helps him feel more included, and feel more ownership over what he's saying.
XR's success will be because of co-located experiences that improve our ability to connect to each other more than creating hyper-personalized isolating experiences, in my opinion.
Morgan Blair 2025
Seattle, Wa.