Breaking the sound barrier
Digital platform for sharing experiences and putting people in touch with each other to promote employment for people with hearing impairments
Phase 3
Type of project: Prototype
Disability concerned: Hearing impairment
Topics : Equality at work
Status: Completed
This project involves the creation of a first prototype enabling skills, resources, experience and expertise to be shared between the three target groups, i.e. employees or job applicants with HD, employers, and third-party services (IV, ORP, dedicated foundations and associations, etc.), in the field of access to the labour market for people with HD.
People with hearing disabilities (HD) face many obstacles in finding employment. One solution is to pool experience and expertise and facilitate contact between the three target audiences (employees/applicants with a hearing impairment, employers and third-party service workers) on a digital platform.
The aim of this work is to create an initial prototype interface, with input from two committee meetings.
The state of the art demonstrates the absence of such a digital platform and consequently the need for a solution to bring together information, experience and resources.
At the second committee meeting, the F-SUS questionnaire had a median of 97.5 and an average of 97.4, which are close to the maximum score of 100, indicating good usability. The prototype includes: information in the form of fold-out questions and answers, testimonials, a list of services by geographical location, a list of job offers and applications, the site’s mission, news and a search function. One missing feature is the addition of examples of CVs and cover letters, as well as a submission facility for analysis.
To accommodate all types of HD, the content can be adapted in: text (standard or simplified French), video with LPC or French sign language or subtitles (standard or simplified French).
A contact system encourages contact between the various stakeholders, with or without an HD. The question can be sent or answered in writing, by video or by other suitable means such as Roger Voice or Procom. For an appointment, users can indicate their availability, the means of communication (remote, face-to-face, by call, etc.) and the interpreting requirements (LPC or French Sign Language).
The difficulties of use and appropriation of the platform are mitigated by the simplicity and ease of access demonstrated by the prototype, as well as by the adaptation of the content for different types of HD.
Following the lessons learnt in the first phases of the project (including the exploratory study), our team, which was already well established, integrated new members with the creation of a steering committee. The two committee meetings provided an opportunity for productive collaboration and sharing. Moreover, this made it possible to guarantee a diversified point of view, since different players with different degrees of deafness were present.
These meetings highlighted the skills and backgrounds of each of its members, in a spirit of mutual respect and trust. They revealed the potential for effective collaboration, with participants discovering, almost to their surprise, just how rewarding exchanges can be (in the sense of overcoming disability), but also how enriching they can be, a source of real progress and innovative ideas.
It would be desirable to validate the results with a wider audience, representative of the different degrees of HD, using a high-resolution prototype.
Two technological obstacles remain:
1. Integrating means of communication: how can we reduce the work involved in interpreting videos in LPC, French sign language and simplified French? How can different external tools such as Procom or video communication be integrated?
2. Setting up an automated contact system: the most convenient way of answering questions and managing appointments would be to have a multilingual secretary (French, LPC, French sign language, spoken French). How far would it be possible to automate the system and to what extent?
These concepts could be the subject of an application for Innosuisse funding.
