This project started when I first saw a video about the Mobile Lorm Glove, I had never even imagined that people with multiple sensory disabilities existed, I found it a fantastic idea and I was very happy that there are people thinking about these kinds of problems.
Every six months or so, I realized that some famous tech blog or other relevant media vehicle showed a story about the Mobile Lorm Glove project, and each time this happened I found something odd about it. And then I heard about a deafblind person (for research purposes I will keep her name in secret) by my uncle, who is chairman of an association called CODI (Centro de Orientação aos Deficientes de Itanhaém - Guidance Center for Disabled People of Itanhaém), he told me about this lady who was struggling to communicate because of their situation, she had visited large institutions asking for support in the state of São Paulo, that replied with none alternatives beyond traditional: Learning Braille and how to communicate through fingerspelling. I then told him that there was already a solution in development, but with a quick search I found out what was wrong about the internet articles: All the devices in question have no new recent news, there was usually an academic article only, with no final product.
Here in Brazil products for the visually impaired are not as accessible as in first world countries, this lady, for example, is saving money to buy a Braille typewriter, that costs more than R$ 7,000.00 BRL (something around $ 2,800.00 USD). A deafblind person have the option to use an refreshable braille display, but it can only be imported and it is even more expensive.
Realizing that in a city like Itanhaém her alternatives would be very restricted and as my project has "few" technical complexities I committed to help her.
Then I showed the idea for my colleagues at the university and despite not getting much help, started the project, alone, and with a very rigid deadline of only 3 months and a half, because of my exchange in Ireland in July and did not want her to stay another year without help. I scheduled meetings with my professor to learn how to better analyze the problem, discovering the requirements and goals. I finally met the lady and realized how time consuming is the communication process. To get an idea, you're probably reading this text at an average speed of 160 words per minute (WPM) while for me to ask a question for her, using her mother as interpreter the rate was 12 WPM, fortunately she can speak normally and we had several fascinating conversations.
If you have curiosity to know how is to be deafblind and have proper guidance and education, I strongly suggest you watch the movie Planet of Snail: