One senior design team, consisting of Nicholas Castro, Elam Cutts, Garrett Wood, and Paige Severino was able to complete a working prototype of its project—a “Web-Based Application for Simulating Auditory Perception in Individuals with Impaired Hearing.”
Speaking on behalf of the team, Severino agreed to answer questions about the experience of completing a Capstone project during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Your project was intended to help users better understand and empathize with people who experience hearing impairment. Did any of you have a personal connection to this topic, or did you have to learn about it during the course of the project?
We all had to learn more about hearing impairments once we started the project. Our client, Michael Papp at the AL Dept. of Rehab, originally pitched the project as an "empathy project," which peaked our interest. We were all interested in doing a project that could immediately help people. This project connected us with UAB Disability Services and an inspiring UAB graduate student who shared their stories with us and really motivated our team to create a tool to help individuals with impaired hearing advocate for themselves, improve communication and relationships, and help them gain an understanding from people without impaired hearing.
Did your goals change as a result of working remotely? If so, how?
From the start, we decided to develop a web-based application to host a customizable hearing impairment simulator. As a team, we created a plan to work in parallel and compile all of the code into a virtual repository, so we were sort of already working remote without the need for physical interaction. Our goals didn't necessarily change because we had to work remote, but they did change due to the time limit, disruption, and distraction that COVID-19 caused. The verification and validation testing we had planned could not be completed, so our goal was to deliver a prototype of the user interface and a working prototype of the simulation that could be run on a local server. Our original goal was to test the prototype to ensure it was user friendly, easy to use, and accurate, and then release Audemo V.1 to be easily accessed by anyone with an internet browser. Although the application is not currently available on the web, we did create a public GitHub repository to house all of the code and documentation necessary to continue the project and bring it to completion. With this repository, anyone can access the code, add their own, and continue to develop the application to the point where it can be deployed. Our team was able to develop a working simulator that users can run on their local server- Audemo V.0.5. The user can upload their audiogram data (the results of the diagnostic test that represents an individual's unique hearing impairment) and a sound file they would like to use for the simulation, and our simulator will modify that original sound file and output a modified sound file that represents the auditory perception of the hearing impaired individual. Overall, our original goal of releasing Audemo V.1 was slightly changed, but we are happy with the progress we made and the deliverables that are out there in the public domain ready for collaboration and future development.
What was the process like after Spring Break? Was it a big disruption, or was this project suited to remote collaboration?
Our project was suited to remote collaboration, but we still weren't immune to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most students, transitioning to online learning, the anxiety of the situation, and the disappointment in not being able to complete senior year in the traditional way resulted in some distraction. However, we were lucky in the sense that we did not need to use machines at UAB or meet as a team to build a prototype. We had planned verification and validation testing that required users to interact with the application as our team collected data on usability, error rates, and learnability, but we were unable to do this because of the pandemic. User testing is extremely important for web application development, as that user feedback would have helped us in completing the UI/UX design. Designing a web-based application is not what we thought of when thinking of a typical biomedical engineering senior design project. Our team spent a lot of time learning about back end development and taking programming courses through YouTube, but it paid off in the end. The non-traditional project where you don't have a shiny, physical prototype