Every built thing has someone it was built for: a pair of hands meant to wield it, a set of eyes meant to witness it, a body meant to walk within it. This “someone” can vary from the single recipient of a bespoke gift to a demographic grouping millions strong, but with the diversity of humanity nothing can be for everyone.

A couple of years ago, my mum asked me to take a look at her new hearing aids. Despite being more powerful (and expensive) than her last pair by a large margin, she simply could not understand how it decided which sounds to amplify and which were “background noise” to filter out, leaving her with the constant feeling she might be missing something.