Graduates from the Industrial Design Department of the College of Fine Arts at Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung-ryul) have developed a new type of interactive device called “VibroCushion” that allows deaf people and hearing people to meditate together. They focused on the fact that existing language-based meditation methods create barriers for deaf people and proposed a new sensory-based method of communication.

The VibroCushion is a cushion-shaped device designed to convert the verbal instructions and gestures of a meditation instructor into vibration patterns that are transmitted throughout the body, enabling deaf individuals to meditate in sync with the same flow. The vibrations move progressively across the user's body or vary in intensity, sensually expressing the key rhythms of meditation such as breathing, concentration, and relaxation. The vibrating meditation cushion enables the sharing of meditation rhythms without the use of language, presenting new possibilities for “sensory-based group meditation” in which deaf and hearing people can participate together.

This device goes beyond a simple vibration transmission device, focusing on realizing sensory equity and forming emotional connections between users with different physical conditions. In particular, through user participation research conducted with the cooperation of the Seongbuk-gu Sign Language Interpretation Center, meditation sessions were held with hearing meditation instructors and deaf users, and responses such as “I felt like we were breathing together through the vibrations” confirmed the depth of non-verbal communication.

This project was conducted as a graduation research project by Dong-Hee Hyun, Dong-Heun Kang, and Ha-Rim Choi, students in the Department of Industrial Design at Kookmin University, and developed into a high-quality prototype through user-centered design under the guidance of Professor Hyo-Sun Kwon. The students planned this research from the perspective that design should play a role in making the experiences of socially vulnerable groups more inclusive.

The results of this research were accepted as a poster presentation paper at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2025, one of the world's most prestigious academic conferences in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), and shared with researchers from around the world in Yokohama, Japan, in April 2025.

The Department of Industrial Design at Kookmin University aims to cultivate practical, hands-on talent capable of improving various everyday experiences through user-centered problem-solving skills and designs that are both rational and creative. Through education and research that respond to societal demands and technological changes, the department operates a curriculum that realizes the social value of design.