REFRAMING HEARING AIDS – EXPLORING THE DESIGN SPACE OF ANALOGUE FASHIONABLE HEARING AIDS FOR USERS WITH MILD HEARING IMPAIRMENTS.

Contemporary digital in ear hearing aids are of significant importance for social participation of users with hearing impairments. Through the advancement of technology, extreme miniaturisation of these devices has been achieved. However, by no means all people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually use one. Cormack and Fortnum state that the majority (80%) of adults aged 55–74 years who would benefit from a hearing aid, do not use them. This is in line with Arnold and Makenzie who estimate a gap of a factor of 5 between people who would benefit from the use of a hearing aid than actually do acquire and use one. Even according to the statistics from the Federal Guild of Hearing Aid Acousticians in Germany, only 3.7 million use a hearing aid out of 5.4 million who have an induced hearing loss. This article explores the design space of fashionable analogue contemporary hearing aids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]