Document Type

Article

Date

12-2017

Keywords

Agency, deafness, disability, human/machine collaboration, interface design, writing

Language

English

Disciplines

Digital Humanities | Other English Language and Literature | Other Rhetoric and Composition | Other Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description/Abstract

This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearer’s rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the company’s promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions in multiple hearing situations. Reliance on ubiquitous, familiar hardware such as smart phones and intuitive interface design can drive patient comfort and adoption rates of these complex technologies that influence cognitive health, social connectedness, and crucial information access. Categories and Subject

ISSN

2166-1642

Additional Information

CDQ is published by the Association of Computing Machinery.

CDQ_5.4_4th_Qtr_2017_KennedyOnly.pdf (422 kB)
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Source

submission

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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