Comparing video and avatar technology for a health education application for deaf people.

The article describes the steps and results of a parallel research investigating e-health systems design and implementation for deaf people both in avatar and video technology. The application translates medical knowledge and concepts in deaf sign language for impaired users through an avatar. Two types of avatar technologies are taken into consideration: Video Avatar with recorded humans interface and Animated Avatar with animated figure interface. The comparative study investigates the data collection, design, implementation and the impact study. The comparative analysis of video and animated technology for data collection shows that the video format editing requires fewer skills and results are obtained easier, quicker and less expensive. The video technology supports an easier to design and implement architecture. The impact study for 2 deaf students communities is under development and for the time being the video avatar is better perceived.