Talking Tiles

Do people with hearing impairments ever get tired of listening?

Context

Listening can be tiring, especially when you are hearing impaired and in a situation where multiple people are speaking simultaneously. It can lead to listening fatigue, which makes you feel exhausted and even less able to focus on listening.

Listening breaks

Listening breaks seem to be a solution to the problem, as they allow the user to leave the conversation and move to a quiet space to calm down and energise. However, people dislike taking them because they like to stay involved.

Solution

Talking Tiles is a package with sixteen different icons designed to allow you to calm down and energise in a quiet space while remaining involved with your friends. Your friends use these icons to summarise the conversation you miss while leaving to go on your listening break. They flip an icon at each new subject of the conversation to mark its topic. When you return, your friends bring you up to date, using the icons to jag their memory.Â