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Good practice Imported

SignSupport — Community-Based Co-Design of a Sign-Language Medication App with Cape Town's Deaf Community

South Africa · Cape Town · See the South Africa profile · See the Cape Town profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 82% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A 2014 community-based co-design study led by Delft University of Technology and the University of the Western Cape with Cape Town's Deaf community produced SignSupport, a South African Sign Language video app letting pharmacists explain medication instructions to Deaf patients.

23
Deaf participants in exploratory study (Jan-May 2014)
10
Health professionals involved (Jan-May 2014)

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Delft University of Technology & University of the Western Cape, with the Deaf Community of Cape Town
Period
January–May 2014 (study); published 2016
Keywords
health, assistive technology, academic research, disability rights

Context

South African Sign Language has no standard written form, leaving Deaf patients at elevated risk of medication dosing errors from written labels or verbal pharmacist instructions.

Activities

Researchers from Delft University of Technology, the University of the Western Cape and Wits ran a community-based co-design process with Cape Town's Deaf Community and the Vukani Deaf Club to build SignSupport, an app showing pharmacists' medication instructions as pre-recorded South African Sign Language videos.

Results

The exploratory study involved 23 Deaf participants and 10 health professionals, who reported understanding and satisfaction with the video-based instructions, identifying sign-language video, 'health drama' and picture-plus-text as effective delivery techniques.

Conclusions

The published record covers only this small, single-site exploratory phase; no evidence of wider rollout or scaled deployment was found.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Delft University of Technology Design Engineering researchers, UWC BANG computer-science initiative, Wits SASL department

Conditions for success

  • community-based co-design with the Deaf Community of Cape Town and Vukani Deaf Club

Common failure modes

  • no subsequent evidence of wider rollout or scaled deployment beyond the initial pilot

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