What if you could go to another country where you don't understand the language — but could understand the signs around you with a simple push of a button?

Student Jonathan Pool is working on a project that would make this possible.

"I said to myself ... if people are increasingly carrying camera phones with them, why couldn't they shoot pictures of any writing or printing in a language they don't know and use the phones to get those texts translated," Pool said. The project is part of a class — CSE 490F — on user-interface design and human based-interaction.

"I'm interested in all methods that empower people to understand each other across the boundaries separating the world's approximately 6,000 languages," said Pool, who is working with three other students from the UW, Luke Woods, Tim Wong and Neb Tadesse.

"Students were asked to submit project proposals and each student voted to get involved with one of the projects for the rest of the quarter," Wong said.

They've only been working for a little over a month but have already conducted three tests, the last of which took place the weekend of Nov. 10.

"[To use the feature], the user would go into 'panlingual camera mode' and take pictures. The user sees the resulting translation along with the photo, judges whether it's sufficient and decides whether to request an improved translation by human translators," Pool said. "The system relies on human-machine collaboration for the indefinite future."

So far there have been three batches of tests.

One test observed the kind of texts that people would ask for help with in public places where they can't understand the texts around them, Pool said. A second test was conducted to find out how well people can photograph texts with mobile phones and a third test was used to rate the initial rough design of the user-system interaction on some potential users.

Although there has been much learned from the tests, Pool said he believes it will be a while until this is commercially available.

"I imagine this concept could become a working product (commercially or open-source) within three to five years," he said.

The group made several assumptions about the availability of certain features on cell phones, such as the ability to take photos, Wong said.

"We're hoping these features would already be present on most people's phones in the future," he said.

Reporter Chris Paredes: news@thedaily.washington.edu