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A virtual human that enables post office assistants to communicate with deaf and hearing impaired customers is to go on trial in five branches next month.

Tessa, the text and sign support assistant, is an electronic interpreter who translates spoken language into British Sign Language.

The Tessa system combines speech recognition technology and virtual human animation. As post office assistants speak into a microphone, their words are recognised by a computer speech recognition system. The speech is converted to British Sign Language and signed by Tessa for the customer.

Tessa's movements are based on those of a human sign language user and she has been designed to work in noisy environments and recognise different accents. English text can also be displayed for those who do not use sign language.

Tessa has been developed by the University of East Anglia, virtual human specialist Televirtual, Consignia, and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.