IT Innovation with

Hearing Impaired
Children

Karin Slegers Pieter Duysburgh

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Vrije Universiteit Brussel
 Agenda
• Innovation through participatory design
• Research with hearing impaired children
• Design for hearing impaired children
INNOVATION THROUGH
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
 What is participatory design?
• User centred design
• User is starting point, not technology
• Participatory design
• User is actively involved in research & design
 Phases in participatory design

Inspiration Design Prototype

phase phase Phase
Participatory design methods
 Participatory design with hearing
impaired children
• Two challenges:
• Children
• Ivolvement in research & design should be fun
• Important role for parents, teachers, etc.
• Hearing impairment
• Many research & design methods are based on a
shared verbal language
CASE: INNOVATIVE IT
APPLICATIONS FOR HEARING
IMPAIRED CHILDREN
Inspiration Design Prototype
phase phase Phase
INSPIRATION PHASE
 Agenda
• Goal
• Methods
• Findings
• Goal: Map the world of experience of
hearing impaired children
 Methods
• Observations
• Expert interviews
• Family interviews
• Creative sessions
 Observations
• Book presentation
passive observations
• Summer camp
participatory observations
 Expert interviews
• Psychologist
• Sign language teacher
• Living communities supervisor
• CI expert
• Educational expert
 Family interviews
• Only one family
• Two daughters, one hard-of-hearing
• Family interview + parent interview
• Topics discussed:
• Daily activities
• Routines
• School & recreation
• Problems
• Coping
 Creative sessions
• Background:
• Verbal information processing
• Reading comprehension
• Empathy
• Fantasy
Or expression thereof?
 Creative sessions
• Goal:
• understand how hearing impaired children deal
with visual stories
• understand better to what extent these
children are able to make up stories and
detach themselves from what they have seen
and experienced themselves
 Creative sessions
• Step1: Fragments of favourite TV shows or
movies
• Observation of responses
• Rating
 Creative sessions
• Step 2: create & present stories
• Visual storytelling – comics
• Presentation in spoken and/or sign language
DESIGN PHASE
 Agenda
• Goal
• Methods
• Results
• Goal: translate insights into concepts for
new applications
• Design team
psychologist, sociologists, communication scientists,
engineers, developers, designers
• Conceptual workshops
empathising workshop, ideation workshop
• Concept evaluations
pedagogical institutes
 Empathy workshop
• Goal: allow design team to step into the
world of experience of hearing impaired
children
 Empathy workshop
• Step 1: Exhibition of insights
 “Are those elderly ladies still deaf?
What did they do wrong then?”

“Some doctors give parents

“Sentences such as the impression that their children
‘if only I had brought will be able to hear perfectly
my umbrella’ are again. We have to disappoint
tricky.” them all the time.”
Identitity

Language Hearing

Insights

“Hearing impaired children

Develop- miss out on the little daily
Education
conversations parents have.
ment That is how other children
Framing learn a lot about norms and
values.”
 Empathy workshop
• Step 2: Persona exercise
• What would it be like to be a
deaf child?
• Template
• Day in the life of
• Problems
• Dreams
 Empathy workshop
• Step 3: Listing of user characteristics,
problems and needs
 Ideation workshop
• Goal: translate insights from inspiration
phase into concepts for new IT
applications
 Ideation workshop
• Step 1: Concept generation
• Concept cards
• Problem/need
• Solution
• IT concept
• ‘Fun’ elements
• Pass-through principle
 Ideation workshop
• Step 2: Creative session
• Scrap material
• Prototype creation
• Presentation
 Concept evaluation
• Design team
• Discussion of technical feasibility of the 13
concepts
• 8 concepts were retained
 Concept evaluation
• Two care/pedagogical institutes for
hearing impaired children
• Presentation of 8 concepts
• Focus group evaluation
• Further refinement

• 5 concepts remained
 1. Reading assistant

Vocabulary Audiovisual support

Grammar
 1. Reading assistant
• On different levels:
• word / sentence / paragraph / chapter

• Content:
• Teacher’s own material
• Textbooks
• Magazines

• Better understanding of educational needs

• Local & distant learning

 2. Collage conversation
Spoken word Gesture

+ Alternatives:
“Did you mean?”

Support of conversation
2. Collage conversation
• Device:
• Portable or interactive whiteboard

• Setting:
• At home
• At school

• Conversation …
• between parent and child
• between teacher and student
• between (hearing impaired) children
3. Storytelling game
?

?
?

?
© The Wald Disney Company
 3. Storytelling game
• Different levels of difficulty

• Cf. ‘Choose your own adventure book’

• New scene in story works serves as inforcement

4. Gesture game
 4. Gesture game
• Sense of pride: “I am good at this”

• The importance of personalization

• For:
• Children
• Family members
• Individual

• Track progression
 5. Intuitive composer
Buttons
Visualization
Colors

Movement
Vibrations
Vibrations

Images Colors
Facial expression

Speech
Skills
 5. Intuitive composer
• Both making and experiencing music intuitively

• Multisensory

• Improve speech skills

• Fluency & Accuracy

• Similar device might improve sensorial

development of young children
NEXT STEPS
• Visualization of selected concepts
• Storyboards
• Scenarios
• 2nd, more specific cycle of participatory
design process
• (Co-)design and evaluation of prototypes
e karin.slegers@soc.kuleuven.be
e pieter.duysburgh@vub.ac.be