Katie O'Brien - Beppi.

Shortlisted for the Global Design Graduate Awards 2022.

Highly Commended in the Irish Design Institute Graduate Awards 2022.

Meet Beppi.

Beppi increases the Deaf persons involvement in conversations, starting in the home, and improves seamless social connectivity, alleviating the reliance from the traditional pen and paper.

Beppi is a contemporary visual communication device. It uses smart technology to translate group discussion in real time, using simplified text and LED adaptation. Beppi’s LED light’s continuously alternate colour during the conversation in accordance with each speaker, thus allowing the Deaf to instantly identify who is speaking while observing the conversation ques on screen

The Challenge

Have you ever felt alienated from a group conversation?

90% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents, with only 42% of these families using Sign Language in the home. As an empathetic designer, I began researching by communicating with members of the Deaf Community in Ireland, who stated this language barrier causes a feeling of disconnection, isolation and frustration, for them in family life and in wider society.

I wanted to help change this with the use of interactive design.

Process

My design process was influenced and guided by continuous interviewing, user testing, body-storming, co-creation, product analysis and feedback sessions with experts and members of the Deaf Community.

Working alongside members of the Deaf Community throughout this project was invaluable when it came to understanding my users needs, wants and desires for a future interactive product solution.

Observational Sketches of group conversations showing difficulty in grabbing ones attention.

Empathetic body storming session using earbuds while stepping out into the real world

The Goal

On reflection of my research, I began my ideation phase by focusing on the topic of grabbing the users attention and allowing seamless conversation. Beppi was based off one of my initial concepts, the ‘light box’, which visually communicated what was happening at the kitchen table through the use of alternating coloured lights.

Why?

Repeatedly not communicating information to someone who is concerned or has a general interest in what is being said can have a negative impact on ones confidence and social skills. All the Deaf members I interviewed stated they no longer put themselves in scenarios where there are too many people in a conversation as they never know what is going on or get a chance to input.

Initial Concept of lightbox.

Discovery Through Making.

Kicking Off

The development phase of this project was by far the most enjoyable, which involved lots of fun and interactive experiments.

Each sketch and prototype was tested by the user. The feedback from these tests then went on to inform the next experiment which finally led to Beppi.

Digital sketches assessed by the user based on form.

Experiment 1 - Form & Function Co-Creation

I began my experimental process with sketching and prototyping simple models to get the point of concept across to my user.

My co-creation session looked at creating basic foam shapes based off my sketches and then seeing how the user would turn these foam blocks into functional devices.

Co-creation session

Experiment 2 -Improving Conversation Awareness

I created an interactive paper prototype which contained a premade script of fake dialogue between two people as well as colour changing LEDs.

This experiment aimed to test the users ability to understand the conversation by reading key words only. Test if the device removes the user from the situation or keep the social interaction level the same.