This report provides an extensive investigation into the features of communication aid design as perceived by users of these devices and professionals who provide them to users.  The results of this work can be separated into a number of strands which emerged as strong themes throughout the investigation: Unreliable and complex, a damming verdict on communication aids? discusses how users and professionals perceive the way that communication aids are made; Choosing a communication aid, the black art? examines the tools available to people to help inform the decision around which communication aid is appropriate for someone; Is there a knowledge gap between users and professionals? looks at some of the implications for service delivery that emerge from this work.

Throughout these strands of discussion run the three domains that emerged within this research.  As can be seen throughout this report the domains are extremely interlinked and inter-dependent:  the context of use of an aid affects the requirements for the design of an effective device and success may be entirely dependent on the wider picture around the device use.  This inter-dependency should be considered when reading the following discussion:  if this research is a damming verdict on the design of communication aids, this cannot stand alone from the effect of the context and wider picture; if choice of a communication aid is currently a black art, this cannot just sit within the responsibility of services or individuals but also highlights deficits in the design of devices and may be exacerbated by the context of the individual user; poor device design and transparency of features may contribute to the knowledge gap between users and professionals; and the context of individual users may mask the root problem.