Questions and answers
Last reviewed 15 September 2026
The questions people ask before they trust this with something that matters, including the ones with awkward answers. If yours is not here, ask us and we will add it.
The basics
- What does VoxSign actually do?
- It listens to spoken Luganda or English, writes down what was said, matches those words against a reviewed Ugandan Sign Language vocabulary, and plays the matching signs on a 3D avatar in time with the audio. Captions and a full transcript run alongside the signing.
- Does it cost anything?
- Not to start. The Free plan gives you 2 live translations every 24 hours, up to 20 in total, plus sign search and the first lesson chapter, with no card needed. Premium costs 50,000 UGX a month or 570,000 UGX a year in Uganda, or 13.10 USD a month or 149.34 USD a year by card anywhere else. Prices are fixed, and Flutterwave's transaction fee is paid on top; checkout shows the fee and the total before you pay. Premium adds unlimited live translation, every lesson and video translation, and it never renews by itself. The plans page has the full comparison.
- Which sign language does it use?
- Ugandan Sign Language. It is built for USL specifically rather than adapting a vocabulary borrowed from American or British sign language, and other sign languages are not in scope.
- Which spoken languages does it understand?
- Luganda and English. The speech model is a Whisper model fine tuned on Luganda, so it follows how people here actually speak rather than only textbook English. Other Ugandan languages are not supported yet.
- Do I need an account?
- Yes, and it takes an email address and a code we send to it. The account is what stores your accessibility settings and your learning sessions, so the app arrives set up the way you need it on any device you sign in from.
Accuracy, and what it will not do
- Can I rely on this instead of an interpreter?
- No, and this is the most important answer on the page. VoxSign is an assistive aid. It is not a qualified interpreter and it does not carry the judgement or the accountability of one. Do not use it as the only means of communication in medical, legal, employment, financial, emergency or examination settings. Use a qualified interpreter there, and use VoxSign alongside if it helps.
- What happens when a word has no sign?
- The avatar stays idle and the transcript still shows the words. VoxSign never invents, approximates or substitutes a sign, anywhere in the system, so a gap you see is genuinely a gap in the vocabulary. A wrong sign is worse than no sign, because a wrong sign gets believed and it teaches the wrong thing.
- Why is the vocabulary so small?
- Because every addition is reviewed with people who use Ugandan Sign Language rather than generated automatically. That is slower, and it is the reason you can trust what the avatar does show you. If a sign you need is missing, tell us, because that is genuinely how the vocabulary grows.
- Why are the captions slightly out of step?
- The speech model returns the words it heard but not the exact moment each one was said, so captions are positioned across short segments of audio rather than measured word by word. Expect them near the speech rather than locked to it. Fixing this properly needs timestamps from the speech model itself, and it is on our list.
- It misheard me. Why?
- Speech recognition accuracy varies with background noise, distance from the microphone, and accent. Because the transcript is always shown, you can see what it heard and say it again rather than discovering the mistake later through a wrong sign.
Uploading video
- How big and how long can a video be?
- Up to 200 MB and up to 20 minutes. Anything larger or longer is refused at upload rather than accepted and then failed.
- How long does processing take?
- A few minutes for a long recording, because the audio is transcribed in short segments in sequence. You will see the real stage and the real progress rather than an invented estimate, and you can leave the page and come back to it.
- Can I keep more than one session?
- No. You hold one learning session at a time, and uploading a new video replaces the previous one, deleting that video and its results immediately. So note or download anything you need before you upload again.
- How long do you keep my video?
- Around 24 hours after a session finishes successfully, then the video and its results are deleted automatically. A failed session goes after about 15 minutes, and a replaced one goes straight away. VoxSign is not storage, so keep your own copy of anything you need to keep. The privacy policy has the full schedule.
- Is my recording used to train your model?
- No. Your audio and video produce your translation and nothing else. They are not used to train, fine tune or evaluate the speech model and are not added to any dataset. If we ever wanted to do that we would change the privacy policy first, ask you explicitly, and give you a way to say no, before a single recording was used.
- Can I upload a recording of other people?
- Only if you have their agreement. That is your responsibility rather than ours, and it matters more than it sounds: a recording of a meeting or a consultation can carry real consequences for the people in it.
Accessibility
- What accessibility settings are there?
- Three text sizes, reduced motion, high contrast, colour blind support, an easy navigation mode with larger targets, and caption controls. They are saved to your account rather than one browser, so they follow you between devices. You will find them under Profile, then Accessibility.
- Why is animation switched off by default?
- Because for a good number of people motion is not a preference but a problem, and an accessibility product should not make them turn it off before the app is usable. Every loading state is designed to still read as loading when nothing is moving.
- Does it work with a screen reader and with a keyboard?
- Yes. Every control is reachable and operable by keyboard with a visible focus ring, each page starts with a skip to main content link, and every wait announces itself in words rather than leaving a silent spinner. We test this internally on every new screen. We have not had an independent audit, and the accessibility statement says so.
- The avatar will not load on my device.
- The avatar is a 3D render and needs a browser and a device that can handle WebGL, so on an older or low powered device it can be slow or fail. The transcript and captions do not depend on it, so the text still works. Tell us what device you are on, because that is useful to us.
Accounts and help
- My verification code has not arrived.
- Check the spam folder first, then check the address on the screen character by character. A mistyped address that happens to be a real domain is accepted by mail providers and never bounces, so nothing reports an error, which is why the page shows your address in full and offers a way back to sign up again.
- Can I sign in with Google and with a password?
- Yes. Both routes on the same verified email address resolve to one account rather than two. A provider is only linked when its email address matches and the provider has verified it.
- How do I delete my account?
- Email info@voxsign.co.ug and ask. We will confirm you control the address on the account and then delete it along with your profile, preferences and sessions. You do not have to give a reason. Where Ugandan law or regulation requires it, we keep some account and payment records for a limited period afterwards, only for that purpose; the privacy policy explains.
- Something is broken. Who do I tell?
- Use Report a problem under Profile when you are signed in, or email info@voxsign.co.ug. Tell us the page, what you were trying to do and what happened instead. If it is an accessibility barrier we treat it as a fault, not a feature request.
- Can my school or organisation use this?
- Yes, and we would like to hear from you, because what teachers and clinics need shapes what gets built next. Note that VoxSign does not discharge any legal duty of accessible communication you are under; it helps alongside proper provision rather than replacing it.
Still stuck? Write to us on the contact page. The accessibility statement covers what works and what does not yet, the privacy policy covers your data, and the terms of service cover what the service does and does not promise.