Type of Work
Team Project
What We Delivered
Concept Design
When
Jan - April 2024
As part of my studies at UCL, I participated in co-design sessions with individuals with disabilities, including Marvin, a man with mild dysarthria and partial deafness. Through collaborative sessions with Marvin and his speech-language therapist, I helped design a conceptual assistive technology solution to enhance his communication.
This project aimed to improve verbal communication and social interaction for individuals with hearing impairments. Recognizing the challenges of lip-reading, we focused on developing smart glasses that display real-time captions.
My role involved leading prototyping efforts, facilitating inclusive co-design sessions, and translating team insights into visual representations.
While individuals with hearing impairments, like Marvin, often rely on lip-reading to understand others in conversation. However, this can be challenging in various social settings, such as noisy environments or interactions with strangers. Existing assistive technologies often depend heavily on smartphones, which can disrupt the natural flow of conversation. Additionally many users note that device locations, and structure of commands lead to users avoiding using these devices in communal spaces.
During the co-design session with Marvin, his speech therapist, and our design team, we explored his communication challenges and priorities. Our findings included:
These insights guided the development of a wearable device that seamlessly integrates captions into real-world conversations.
With our design, we aimed to: