The Usage of Jewelry Under the Emotional Design Approach to Improve the Self-Image of Hearing Aid Users

Abstract

One of the issues that has always beset humanity throughout history is hearing loss, which continues to impact asizable portion of the population despite advancements in technology and medicine. These individuals must usecochlear implants or hearing aids to make up for their organ defect; additionally, this product makes up for the defect asa rehabilitation tool and aid; however, it also serves as a symbol of the deaf or hard of hearing user's disability, whichmay cause this group to be viewed differently from other members of society. This research is conducted to explore ifincorporating aesthetic principles of jewelry into hearing aids can evoke positive emotions regarding the user's selfperception and is divided into two sections: firstly, investigating the connection between emotional design and jewelry design through library research, and then the results are used to create a sample of behind the ear hearing aid that double as jewelry based on mood board of jewelry and silhouettes of hearing aid general forms. The designed sample is compared with the representative examples of this product in the market using the Kansei engineering method, and the semantic separation technique is used to extract the feelings of the user concerning self-confidence and self-image. The results obtained in this research show that hearing aids as jewelry induce more positive emotions such as the desire to show off and a sense of self-confidence in users in comparison with other products of this kind, which is directly related to the users' self-image of this product.