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DA / EN

Enhancing Silence: Inclusive social innovation with and for deaf persons through wearable sensory artefacts

Project objective

Denmark currently supplies half of the world's hearing aids and hosts a considerable amount of research with regard to improving quality. Such research is important, but focuses on the user's weakness rather than creating a context in which rich, meaningful feedback can be gained from their use.

This project proposes an alternative approach. Using co-design and social innovation, we will work with deaf persons to develop wearable sensory artefacts for their personal use, and that which redirect the development process towards social effect and value-creation.

 

This method is based on a pilot study conducted in Italy, which identified six basic requirements for deaf people, who are not currently involved in the development of the very aids they need: visibility, security, curiosity, aesthetics, social sustainability and personalisation.

 

The project will investigate the needs of deaf people in Denmark, develop aesthetically-sophisticated sensory artefacts that correspond to current needs, and investigate the commercial and innovation potential of artefacts and the co-design process. 

 

Project outcome

The objective of Enhancing Silence is to design, test and implement a range of aesthetically-sophisticated sensory artefacts and investigate commercial opportunities with deaf people, to discover how and where current innovation processes need to be revised to support the integration of the deaf to a greater degree. More specifically, we will seek to understand how deaf people can be involved in the development of products intended for their use - not as fleeting participants, but as key players in the innovation process.

 

Contact

Work package leader: Danielle Wilde, Associate Professor,

Department of Design and Communication

Partners

Steffen Korsgaard, Associate Professor, Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management

Bech Thøisen and Marcus Ronalds, Pakhuset (SDU MakerSpace)

Last Updated 28.09.2018