2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Mobile phones and tablets allow people to communicate to each other on opposite sides of the world. Using a mobile phone/tablet in an unconventional way, we managed to enable a 2 way conversation for the first time in 10 years between a husband and wife who have been married for 70 years. To bring Bett (91) back into the conversation, we invented ‘spuble’. spuble uses speech to text technology to create real life speech bubbles. The user talks into the mobile device and the words appear on screen instantly. The user holds the screen up to the hearing impaired person for them to read like live subtitles. The UI was designed in such a way that Bob (96) could use it intuitively. The fonts and colours were carefully considered and designed to stand out from afar making the speech bubbles easy to read for elderly people.

Creative Execution

Seeing Bett and Bob using spuble to talk like they used to was a highlight of this project. Bett now chats with Bob and the rest of the family freely like she used to before she lost her hearing. spuble has changed her life. Word soon spread to the daycare centre that Bett goes to twice a week where it is now used with other elderly people. We sent the app to a range of relevant companies and charities from the NHS, Alzheimer’s Society, Action on Hearing Loss to O2 UK and Talk Talk UK so they could make use of it for us to gain feedback. We then created a short film, which was seeded online in order to spread the word around the world and help as many people as possible.

Although spuble was inspired by and designed for Bett and Bob, we made it free for anybody to download and use it has been downloaded thousands of times around the world, from the Americas to Europe and Australasia. spuble has also been adopted by O2 UK for specialist visual & hearing impairment staff training for vulnerable customers. After receiving such positive feedback, we are planning to make spuble 2.0 available in a number of languages to help as many people as possible.

Hearing loss is widespread – it affects 10 million people in the UK and as our society ages, this number is set to grow: current predictions are that by 2031 there will be more than 14.5 million people with hearing loss in the UK (Action on Hearing Loss, 2011) Age-related damage is the single biggest cause of hearing loss. (AoHL, 2011) This means that older people are very likely to experience hearing loss alongside other long-term conditions – such as dementia. Knowing that Bett’s condition of Dementia and hearing loss is becoming increasing common among elderly people we wanted to do something to help her with the aim of helping others too. By observing Bett keep in touch with the world through reading her daily newspapers and the subtitles on TV, we came up with an idea to help her and others like her.