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Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals find experiencing public spaces difficult.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals often struggle in public spaces due to inadequate visual cues and reliance on audio-based information.

Implementing comprehensive visual information systems and providing inclusive communication training can significantly improve accessibility in urban environments like Atlanta.

How can we empower DHH individuals by giving them equal access to auditory information?


More specifically, how can we increase contextual awareness of auditory cues for DHH individuals within public spaces?

PROBLEM SPACE

Google Maps feature enhancing auditory awareness for Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals on public transport.

Deaf Accessibility for Google Maps

The academic literature gave us insights into the challenges faced by Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals in public spaces, particularly regarding navigation and accessibility. It highlighted the importance of visual cues, the need for improved emergency notifications, and the potential of assistive technologies.

Academic literature detailed the severity of the problem.

Other products attempt to solve this problem, but are difficult to actually use in daily life.

While there are some solutions available, most focus on general communication or specific use cases. We found a gap in comprehensive solutions for navigating public transportation.

DHH users brought many problems in to our attention.

After conducting secondary research, we decided to directly engage with people, interviewing:

  • 3 Deaf Individuals

  • 1 Hard of Hearing Individual

  • 2 DHH Researchers

  • 1 Accessibility Designer

We received answers from users that spanned various domains:

  • Personal stories of Deafness and disability onset

  • Deaf Culture

  • Education

  • Language Deprivation Syndrome

  • Navigation

  • Communication

  • Fears of the Deaf Community

Findings from interviews, focused on our problem space:

Deaf
Participant

VRS
Interpreter

Accessibility Expert

Affinity Mapping to pattern match responses.

RESEARCH

Users want consistency, control, and improved navigation.

MY CONTRIBUTION

My background in linguistics gave me great talking points with ASL speakers. My research on Language Deprivation Syndrome helped speakers open up, since we came across as empathetic and curious.

PUBLIC SPACES

We should strive to position environments for DHH individuals to make scanning for surrounding cues more efficient.

DESIGN FOR DHH

We should include DHH individuals in our design process, as design for this community will benefit all.

TECHNOLOGY

We should innovate technology solutions for wider preferences, that are convenient for all, and integrated into their daily workflow.

Mass ideation led to ideas across all domains.

The team conducted extensive ideation to generate a diverse pool of concepts, avoiding early critique. This approach ensured the selection of realistic and relevant solutions, rather than limiting options too soon.

Ideas changed slightly every time we discussed the projects. To ensure that we were fully in line with every idea, we brainstormed absolutely every aspect of them.

Some of the sketches we created, to describe each concept:

We brainstormed 100 design concepts.

Amber Alerts to Contact

Quick Meeting Transcriber

Announcement Alerts for Airport

DHH Social Media with Video-based chat

Struggling with ideas.

Our interviewee emphasized the importance of haptic feedback, user-controlled audio features, and visual symbols for intuitive alerts, recommending 5-7 essential cues for various scenarios.

Codesign session with inclusive design expert to narrow down to the final idea.

IDEATION

Developing a Google-esque prototype.

We conducted a teardown of all the main flows of Google Maps to familiarize ourselves with the UI, Design Hierarchy, and Interactions of the system. This inspired the design of our main flows.

Teardown of Google Maps design to inform decisions.

The prototype outlines a new Google Maps feature for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, encompassing onboarding, journey visualization, permissions, audio history, and user feedback to enhance accessibility and safety.

First pass prototype with key flows.

MY CONTRIBUTION

I drew all the diagrams you see here (and more)! I love paper wireframes because they allow me to quickly sketch out ideas and iterate on designs without getting bogged down in details.

DESIGN

Testing with users!

We are planning a trip to the GCDHH next week to evaluate our initial prototype. Stay tuned for more!

Planning to go to the Georgia Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing soon!

EVALUATION

My role in this product varied through the process. I ideated many ideas with my team, conducted research with them, prototyped our feature in Figma, and now we will be conducting evaluation sessions with Deaf and Hard of Hearing users. I was involved in every step of the process, particularly in the ideation phase when we were weighing out ideas.

The product is in progress. We are currently working on prototyping a Google Maps feature that will solve this problem for our users. This feature is intended to work primarily on mobile, using visual cues and haptics to alert the user. In the future, this application might extend to smartwatches.

What is the product?

What was my role?

User Interviews

Co-Design

Competitive Analysis

Sketching

Wireframing

Concept Validation

Prototyping

Design Project

Aug 2024 - Present

Figma

FigJam


Roles & Responsibilities

Context

Tools

Disha Sikaria

Timothy Chiu

Rachit Bhayana

Natalie Jarrett


Team

In Progress!