REFRAMING HEARING AIDS – EXPLORING THE DESIGN SPACE OF ANALOGUE FASHIONABLE HEARING AIDS FOR USERS WITH MILD HEARING IMPAIRMENTS

DS 122: Proceedings of the Design Society: 24th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED23)

Year: 2023
Editor: Kevin Otto, Boris Eisenbart, Claudia Eckert, Benoit Eynard, Dieter Krause, Josef Oehmen, Nadège Troussier
Author: Klöckner, Hermann; Wiesner, Martin
Series: ICED
Institution: Anhalt University of Applied Sciences
Section: Design Methods
Page(s): 3045-3054
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.305
ISBN: -
ISSN: -

Abstract

m state that the majority (80%) of adults aged 55–74 years who would benefit from a hearing aid, do not use them. This is in line with Arnold and Makenzie who estimate a gap of a factor of 5 between people who would benefit from the use of a hearing aid than actually do acquire and use one. Even according to the statistics from the Federal Guild of Hearing Aid Acousticians in Germany, only 3.7 million use a hearing aid out of 5.4 million who have an induced hearing loss. This article explores the design space of fashionable analogue contemporary hearing aids.

Keywords: Inclusive design, Open innovation, Hearing Aid, Generative Design, User centred design