Help the Deaf and Mute: A Mobile-Assisted App for Quick Emergency Reporting

The World Health Organization (WHO) puts on record that five per cent of the world population (430 million people) constitute the mute and deaf, and this number has increased exponentially over the years. This population, Omani included, is facing social, behavioral, and psychological challenges that extend to communication and safety concerns. It is an ongoing concern among these populations that they have difficulty asking for immediate assistance during emergencies due to their inherent limitation of communication. This study aims to provide an image-based messaging template for quick emergency reporting for the Royal Oman Police targeting respondents in Muscat using Android mobile phones. Using the Google Fuse location provider, the app keeps track of the current location of the user. With the built-in help templates, the app enables the users to send emergency and the current location using SMS. Also, they can use other messaging apps on the phone to send messages via the internet and create customized messages for quick access. The app garnered “very satisfied” evaluation in the following areas: (1) Templates for quick creation of emergency messages; (2) Customization of emergency messages; (3) Quick sending of location; (4) Effectiveness of visual images; and (5) Alternative options to send message. Overall, the respondents strongly signified that the proposed app is better than the currently used one. For future work, the app should include image and video attachments as the proposed app is purely based on SMS messaging.