Equipping designers by simulating the effects of visual and hearing impairments
Joy Goodman-Deane, Patrick M. Langdon, P. John Clarkson, Nicholas H.M. Caldwell, Ahmed M. Sarhan · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07) · doi:10.1145/1296843.1296892
Summary
This short Assets '07 demonstration paper from the Cambridge Engineering Design Centre describes a software simulator built to help designers — especially product and communications designers, not just web designers — understand the effects of common vision and hearing impairments on their designs. The motivation is the well-known gap between tabulated clinical descriptions of disability and the lived experience of using a product with that condition; the authors argue that simulation is one way to close it, while explicitly acknowledging that simulation cannot convey the frustration, social consequences, or coping strategies of long-term impairment and should not replace user involvement. The simulator is built in Adobe Flash (for easy deployment across desktop, web, and PowerPoint) and separates into two interfaces: a vision simulator covering cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, loss of accommodation, glaucoma, and colour blindness, each except colour blindness adjustable by severity; and a hearing simulator that applies mild, moderate, and severe sloping hearing loss using MATLAB routines from Brian Moore's auditory perception group at Cambridge. The hearing routines incorporate reduced frequency selectivity and loudness recruitment — two effects commonly omitted from simpler hearing simulators but clinically important — and can be driven by any audiogram in principle, though in this version the audio simulations are pre-generated offline because of processing cost. The tool distinguishes itself from predecessors like aDesigner (web only, limited vision aspects) and VIS (desktop-wide, making image comparison awkward) by supporting side-by-side comparison of design alternatives and zoom within a design.
Key findings
The paper is a demonstration rather than an evaluation study, so there are no usability or outcome data reported. What the authors do claim, on the basis of their design decisions, is a combination of coverage (multiple visual conditions plus hearing loss in one package), fidelity (the Moore-group auditory models are psychoacoustically more faithful than typical frequency filters), and design-workflow fit (thumbnail-based file comparison and morphing between closely related images to step through a design progression). A stated limitation is that hearing simulations are pre-computed rather than applied live to user-supplied files; re-implementing the audio pipeline inside the package is listed as planned work. Other stated future work includes integrating vision and hearing simulators into one interface, adding population-statistics overlays so designers can weight impairment simulations by prevalence in the target user base, and collaborating with a communications design agency to integrate the simulators into standard design workflows.
Relevance
For inclusive-design and digital-accessibility practitioners, simulators of this kind remain useful as empathy-building tools — spec-level understanding of low vision, low contrast, or age-related hearing loss rarely survives contact with an actual low-vision user, but designers who have spent a few minutes with a cataract simulator often start making different typography, contrast, and iconography decisions on their own. Modern analogues include NoCoffee and No Coffee Vision Simulator for Chrome, the Stark design plugin for Figma/Sketch, Funkify, and various Android/iOS accessibility inspectors. The authors' key caveat — that simulation supplements but does not replace user involvement — has subsequently been reinforced in the disability-studies literature with pointed criticism of 'simulation exercises' that reduce disability to a fleeting visual blur and risk patronising rather than informing designers. The hearing model's incorporation of loudness recruitment and reduced frequency selectivity also remains relevant: many modern hearing simulators still filter frequencies naively and do not capture what makes real sensorineural hearing loss cognitively taxing. Most severe limitation of the paper: no actual evaluation of designer outcomes with versus without the tool.
Tags: inclusive design · design tools · simulation · visual impairment · hearing impairment · empathy tools · cataract · macular degeneration · colour blindness · loudness recruitment