HearUs Classroom Solutions – Enhancing Classroom Accessibility for Hard-of-Hearing Students

For my final project of my Service Design Master, I chose to pursue a topic that involved fostering equalities. I opted to address the global issue of hearing impairment and related impacts, focusing on my home province of Québec, Canada.

The problem:
3.5 million Canadians have hearing impairments and live in a world that is unprepared to cater to their needs. Hearing-impaired people suffer countless consequences, notably including dependence on technology, lack of understanding, discrimination, social isolation, educational challenges, and profound psychological and emotional difficulties. Lack of awareness on hearing loss prevention measures and lack of empathy toward the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) population are prevalent issues in the country. These issues need to be addressed to create a more accessible future for the deaf and hard of hearing population.

Target user:
Teachers and elementary school students in Québec, Canada.

Objective:
Design a service that fosters empathy among elementary school children toward the DHH population, while raising awareness about hearing loss prevention measures, and giving DHH students a better emotional and academic experience in school.

The approach:
Initial research consisted of digital ethnography and secondary research. The goal of this preliminary research and analysis was to get a sense of the current landscape of hearing impairment in Québec, Canada, existing assistive hearing technologies, services available for DHH children, mainstream school classroom readiness for DHH students, and the current experience of families with DHH children. Key insights that emerged, for example, included poor classroom acoustics and their negative impacts on children's emotional states and learning potential. As well, the severe sparsity of specialized schools to account for DHH students in Québec, shortage of teachers in Québec, and corresponding dire lack of resources in the province to support DHH students.

I gathered peer-reviewed research to confirm my hypothesis that increased empathy toward DHH students would lead to positive changes in behaviour of non-deaf students toward their DHH peers. After confirming the link between empathy and altruism, I investigated current practices in empathy in Québec classrooms. I was also interested in understanding the teacher’s experience in mainstream schools when it came to DHH students - their educational background and subsequent preparedness for teaching DHH students. I interviewed six teachers in Québec to answer these questions, and other questions, regarding hearing impairment in schools, empathy in the classroom, pain points, and the school system. The main points I hoped to gain from these interviews were what teachers needed in order to feel equipped to teach DHH students and foster empathy in their classrooms. From these interviews, and supported by secondary research, I was able to draft service features to accommodate the needs that emerged in my discussions.

I then conducted co-design sessions with experts including teachers, a principal, and a speech-language pathologist. Engaging participants with card-sorting activities and ideation sessions, I aimed to validate my proposed service features. After iterative cycles of research, interviews, and design, I established the four cornerstones of my service.

The solution:
The four pillars of my service, HearUs Classroom Solutions, include:

Classroom equipment
Teacher training
Custom lesson plans that are reliable and adaptable
Teacher’s portal

I drew an ecosystem map to help communicate the stakeholders involved and their relationships in terms of exchange of information, materials, and money. As well, I developed a business model to validate and support the service proposal. I then put together a service blueprint to demonstrate the various interactions involved in the service journey, highlighting the relevant front-stage and back-stage actions over time. This was an opportunity to propose a timeline of actions required leading up to the launch of the service, actions during the service implementation in schools, and actions needed after integration to sustain the service.

To demonstrate key elements of HearUs, I built an interactive Figma prototype of the teacher’s portal for both web and mobile. I also created a short video advertising HearUs, as a quick and easily accessible way to communicate the value in the service to prospective investors.

My solution was a service that empowers teachers with all the tools they need to teach DHH students, through teacher training, and tailored, modular lesson plans. It gives hearing impaired students a better educational experience, both academically and emotionally, maximizing their potential. Finally, it equips all children with hearing loss prevention awareness, and instills them with lasting empathy toward the DHH population. This initiative is about building a community within the classroom where every child is seen, heard, and valued, ultimately creating a future of people with the awareness and empathy to embrace the hearing-impaired population in all walks of life.

I aim, in time, to evolve this service concept into a business.