there’s an insightful critique of this style of engineering…
That sentiment is widely echoed. “ASL gloves are mainly created/designed to serve hearing people,” said Rachel Kolb, a Rhodes Scholar and Ph.D. student at Emory University who has been deaf from birth. “The concept of the gloves is to render ASL intelligible to hearing people who don’t know how to sign, but this misses and utterly overlooks so many of the communication difficulties and frustrations that Deaf people can already face.”
Julie Hochgesang, an assistant professor of linguistics at Gallaudet, said she rolls her eyes when another glove is announced. “We can’t get decent access to communication when we go to the doctor. Why bother with silly gloves when we still need to take care of the basic human-rights issues?”