Interactive applications for children with hearing impairments: a process of inspiration, ideation, and conceptualization

In this paper, we describe the research and conceptualization process in which a design team aimed at creating a number of innovative concepts for interactive applications for hearing impaired children, in order to improve their quality of life. The design team experimented with various ways to include hearing-impaired children and their parents and teachers in this process. First, an inspiration phase was organized in which two field researchers used various ethnographic methods to gain a better understanding of hearing-impaired children. Next, the design team held two ideation sessions, which resulted in 13 concepts. After thorough evaluation of these concepts with all stakeholders involved, three concepts remained. One pedagogical concept was chosen to elaborate further on with the target group and is currently under development in a new research project. The paper ends with a series of recommendations for design teams focusing on hearing-impaired children.