Design Strategy with Hearing Impaired Children
Strategic Designer, UX Researcher
Partner: YiYa Hearing Impaired Children Welfare Org + Beijing Hearing Society
The Lan-gua-ge is an interdisciplinary project work with hearing-impaired children, I dedicated an interactive exhibition in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2018.
The unique expression of hearing-impaired children is like a small language.
Today, a total of 300,000 hearing-impaired children are born in China every year, which is equivalent to the total population of a small European country. The unique expression of hearing-impaired children is like a small language.
In this research, the public generally believed that there was a language barrier between hearing-impaired children and themselves. The Project Language used a means of artistic interactive installation to build bridges of dialogue across time and space between the two groups of people. Through the design and subtle adjustment of children's voices, more people are willing to lean over to hear children's voices.
We ask:
How might we activate people & programs to increase collective investment in hearing impaired children?
November 2017 - March 2020
Partners:
YiYa Hearing Impaired Children Welfare Org
Role:
Stratagic Designer + Industrial Designer + UX Researcher
Research During September - November, 2021
PhaseⅠ
As part of our overall research strategy, we conducted a Practice-based studio - a semester-based class of interdisciplinary students at CAFA, all collectively interested in pushing for social change. Conducted entirely in person, the team learned to follow the Human-centered design process, from research to prototyping. Through this project, the team practiced the tools to conduct participatory design research and strategically provide design ideas while ensuring that the community members, the hearing-impaired children were a core part of this process.
An excited team discussing research plans!
The research phase included meeting with the public, hearing-impaired children & their parents, and gathering data points about social attention and education access.
PhaseⅡ
For research, the team looked at case studies to better understand the contexts of the hearing-impaired and hearing-disabled community and public. These helped set the tone for the research. We then conducted primary research by reaching out to 40+ children and their families and 3 community agencies in Beijing.
We created visual notes to better reflect back on what we heard from the community.
The team created personas based on the interviews and further conducted an ideation session. Based on the shared feedback, we further created digital prototypes of their ideas. One idea was further taken up by the Implementation Team at CAFA to refine and held an exhibition at CAFA Art Museum in 2018, which impacted the community in Wangjing, Beijing to further invest in local hearing-impaired groups.
