For my learnings about the empathy tool, we designed it together, thinking about the complexity of feelings that the hearing-impaired individuals feel.
For example, we feel that individuals not only can’t hear that well, but there are feelings of loneliness and difference that they feel. They become like someone living in their own box where they can only see their own reflection, absent from others. It is also this understanding of loneliness and confinement that I believe this to be similar to the feelings they have of helplessness. From this experience, I felt that I could also only hear my personal voice rather than the outside voice which sort of mimics the hearing-impaired experience. I learned that there is a sort of wall between myself and everyone.
Likewise, for the second empathy tool of the earbuds and band around my head, I feel a sort of inner pressure. I feel that this design doesn’t allow me to experience the world in a way that’s normal. I feel weight on myself. I feel that this case also develops a sort of learning for me in terms of the inner world of the hearing impaired.
Likewise, for the third tool, we actually created a visualization of the device in terms of how people receive information. People cannot hear what the outside hears and they have to sort of guess the question, answering something random. I feel that this is also a clear indicator of the deaf experience as their whole life depends on their intuition and imagination. I feel that the coding for this empathy test also allows the user to understand how their own voice is perceived. Sometimes, we ourselves, do not speak clearly for them to listen. At other times, they can only say yes, no, and not elaborate that much due to vocal impairment.
Likewise, for the second empathy tool of the
Leave a Reply