I have long known that older folks, who may have high frequency hearing
loss, can't hear many of the beeps we make with our little piezo speakers.
Many over-55 people have told me they can't hear their watches, bleeping
away in meetings when the alarms go off.

I used to have a boss who had high frequency hearing loss from his stint in
the Air Force during the Korean war.  When I made a beeper, I just took it
in his office and asked him if he could hear it.  I was really surprised at
how often he could not.  This is a guy with no hearing aid, and no obvious
hearing handicap.

Well, he's retired now.  Does anyone have any real data on high frequency
hearing loss, and some conclusions as to a design rule for beepers?  I am
thinking that any frequency above 3000 Hz may be inaudible to a large
segment of the over 55 population.  That sounds low given I used to be able
to hear 19500 hZ in me bloom of youth, but normal speech has a lot of
components down in the 500-2000 Hz region, and these people can understand
normal speech.

I would think this would be a part of including "handicap accessibility"
into our designs, making them more usable by a large segment of the
population.


-- Lawrence Lile
Sr. Project Engineer
Salton inc. Toastmaster Div.
573-446-5661 Voice
573-446-5676 Fax

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