HapticWave: Presenting the Multiple Voices, Artefacts and Materials of a Design Research Project

The HapticWave is a haptic audio waveform display device that has been developed in collaboration with a group of audio engineers and producers with visual impairments for use in real world recording studio environments. This was not a project led by a designer or driven by a design brief: rather, the genesis of the HapticWave emerged from exchange and interaction between actors who brought to the table different practices, experiences, expertise and needs. By presenting the voices involved in this practice based research project, we offer a comprehensive report to retrace step by step the development and deployment of a research prototype.