Questions
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Online Portfolio
Humanitarian Hearing Aid
Where:
RNID and Brunel University
Keywords: Design for developing countries, Service Design, Sustainable
Losing your hearing is a problem, no matter where in the world you live
The project is based around designing a hearing aid that will be remanufactured from unused, yet perfectly functional, NHS hearing aids and distributed in less economically developed countries.The aim is for the hearing aid to be suitable for use straight after delivery with diagnosis and fitting carried out by the user or anyone, regardless of whether or not they have a medical background.
Analysis of current situation and opportunities
Diagram showing an overview of the overall system
Personas
User testing
Left: Assembly; Right: Instructions
The final product
Initial Investigation
The current lifecycle of the hearing aids was investigated and the obstacles and opportunities in the hearing aids second life considered.
Personas
Primary research wasn’t possible, however information from secondary research was fed into the design process primarily through a set of personas, selected with view not just to present conditions in Afghanistan but with an optimistic outlook in which infrastructure conditions have improved and more people will be in education having missed out whilst at school going age.
Prototyping / Ergonomics testing
A lot was learnt from carrying out user interview questionnaires which was helpful in developing the project. Below is the third iteration, the testing was accompanied by an interview/questionnaire.
Final Product
The product – with a simple assembly process,instructions,packaging and service outline were all key deliverables.
Evaluation
The overall project was evaluated by Thomas Fiddian (senior designer at RNID).The service outline was evaluated by Ray Mines of Motivation, a charity which teaches communities in various developing countries to design & build wheelchairs.