Context

For the deaf in Costa Rica, access to information is limited. This is due to the lack of a support system for their community, the misconception that they can understand Spanish, and the fact that most information is communicated by hearing. This affects everything from access to public transportation and the health care system to cultural activities and interactions with others in daily life. Furthermore, stereotypes about deaf people persist, especially in more vulnerable communities. These are major causes for deaf people feeling excluded and separating their community from others.

This project aims to reduce this sense of marginalization and community separation felt by deaf people in Costa Rica, and to enable them to share their feelings through common experiences with the hearing community, answering the following question:

how might we create an inclusive environment by bridging the gap between the deaf and hearing people and reduce the barriers of accessibility?

Concept

Color Tone is a set of tools, for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in Costa Rica, to experience the physicality of sound. It allows them to access sound and the information it contains by experiencing sound through sight and touch. It is also intended to be used with people who rely on their hearing to share their experiences and feelings.

This experience is expressed by enabling access to sound, giving a new creative outlet for self-expression, encouraging shared experiences and new ways of communicating, and empowering people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The two main components are a portable device that allows people to learn the difference between sounds by experiencing the sounds around them in a non-auditory way, and a music (auditory, visual, and tactile) production tool that allows people to create music using colors and tactile sensations without relying on sound, and to share this experience with others who rely on hearing.

Process

My design process included immersive research, observational research, online surveys, in-depth interviews, and co-creation workshops with the local deaf community in San Jose, teachers for special education, hearing people and music therapists.

Through interviews and co-creation workshops, I learned that deaf people want to connect with others outside of their community through direct and intuitive communication, instead of relying on slow interpretation all the time, and that they enjoy music by feeling the vibrations, dancing, and singing in sign language. I was empowered by their pride in their deaf culture and their deep and beautiful sign language, which led me to create something that would allow them to feel connected to hearing people while using music as a means of communication. I spent nine weeks refining the prototypes from lo-fi to hi-fi, testing with deaf communities and sound experts.

This project witnessed that deaf people in Costa Rica were empowered to experience sound, and discover the possibility of expressing themselves through it. It also enabled hearing people to experience how the deaf perceive the world, and create a connection between them.

For the deaf in Costa Rica, access to information is limited. This is due to the lack of a support system for their community, the misconception that they can understand Spanish, and the fact that most information is communicated by hearing. This affects everything from access to public transportation and the health care system to cultural activities and interactions with others in daily life. Furthermore, stereotypes about deaf people persist, especially in more vulnerable communities. These are major causes for deaf people feeling excluded and separating their community from others.

This project aims to reduce this sense of marginalization and community separation felt by deaf people in Costa Rica, and to enable them to share their feelings through common experiences with the hearing community, answering the following question:

how might we create an inclusive environment by bridging the gap between the deaf and hearing people and reduce the barriers of accessibility?

Color Tone is a set of tools, for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in Costa Rica, to experience the physicality of sound. It allows them to access sound and the information it contains by experiencing sound through sight and touch. It is also intended to be used with people who rely on their hearing to share their experiences and feelings.

This experience is expressed by enabling access to sound, giving a new creative outlet for self-expression, encouraging shared experiences and new ways of communicating, and empowering people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The two main components are a portable device that allows people to learn the difference between sounds by experiencing the sounds around them in a non-auditory way, and a music (auditory, visual, and tactile) production tool that allows people to create music using colors and tactile sensations without relying on sound, and to share this experience with others who rely on hearing.

My design process included immersive research, observational research, online surveys, in-depth interviews, and co-creation workshops with the local deaf community in San Jose, teachers for special education, hearing people and music therapists.

I began by working with the deaf community, being part of their everyday life, and taking them out into nature to observe how they communicate with each other, with us hearing people, and how they use their senses in nature. In addition, I gained important key insights from initial in-depth interviews and an online survey.

1. Deaf people in Costa Rica often feel left out especially when there are many hearing people in the room and the conversation is centered around speaking. On the street, people often feel uncomfortable when they are spoken to because people are not aware that they are hearing impaired, and are mistakenly assumed to be ignoring them.

2. In Costa Rica, access to information for the deaf is limited. This is because most information relies on hearing. When using public transportation, going to the hospital, or watching TV, there is still very limited visual information available, and the services of interpreters are not well developed.

3. The ability of deaf people to obtain information visually is greater than that of hearing people. And their desire for visual information is very strong. However, because their vision compensates for their hearing, a great deal of visual information can appear as a disturbance.

4. Deaf people use sign language as their primary language, whereas those who are hearing use Spanish. This language barrier hinders communication between deaf people and hearing people. Deaf people in Costa Rica are also often misunderstood as all understanding Spanish. It takes more effort for them to learn a soundless alphabet than it does for hearing people to learn a language, and a lot more than we think, many deaf people cannot understand Spanish.

Through additional interviews and co-creation workshops, I learned that deaf people want to connect with others outside of their community through direct and intuitive communication, instead of relying on slow interpretation all the time, and that they enjoy music by feeling the vibrations, dancing, and singing in sign language. I was empowered by their pride in their deaf culture and their deep and beautiful sign language, which led me to create something that would allow them to feel connected to hearing people while using music as a means of communication. I spent nine weeks refining the prototypes from lo-fi to hi-fi, testing with deaf communities and sound experts.

In 9 weeks, I created 8 prototypes from lo-fi to hi-fi and tested them with deaf people and music experts in Costa Rica.

Each user testing session helped develop the features and shapes of the product, including how sound interacts with other senses, the variation of scales, and the colors and shapes of the tools, and final design decisions were made based on their feedback. In the final stage of the project, I decided to create a booklet that explains how to use this tool without using any text, but only with icons and colors. This was because it was difficult to explain words related to sound such as rhythm, tone, and pitch in sign language to deaf people who had little or no experience with sound during the test.

This project witnessed that deaf people in Costa Rica were empowered to experience sound, and discover the possibility of expressing themselves through it. It also enabled hearing people to experience how the deaf perceive the world, and create a connection between them.