Website review: Videomail

With the videomail.io website, you can send short videos directly from your webcam by email, useful if you want to send a message in BSL.

Available free at videomail.io

Ages: 11 to 25

Review

Frankie

Reviewed by Frankie (18) who is profoundly deaf and uses BSL.

"The Videomail website is for BSL users who aren’t confident using English to communicate. So what does it do? It allows a BSL user to record themselves signing using a webcam, then they can send it to the receiver of their choice by putting in their email address.

It’s useful for many different situations – for example emailing people about jobs, volunteering, interviews, applications, surveys and everyday conversation too. However it’s only useful if the receiver understands BSL as well.

The website is free to access and the name is easy to remember. I found it easy to use and the FAQ section is easy to understand too, which is important. It’s useful as it can be used for anything and sent to anyone. The sender doesn’t have to be deaf to use it and a deaf person can request this as a method of contact if they want to (again, depending on whether the other person understands BSL).

However some downsides are that the quality of the video depends on the quality of your webcam and the video can’t be more than three minutes long."