Deliverable
user research
usability testing
web design
web development
My Role
user research
prototyping
web design
Team
Haowen Bao
Jayson Edwards
Tow Mokaramanee
Gavin Screesangkom
Project Summary
People take their vision health seriously. They accept glasses into their life not only as a tool for them to see clearly but also dress fashionably. When it comes to hearing health, however, people tend to reject the idea of wearing hearing aids as they associate it with the word “old”.
We are a student team from the University of Washington, contracted with Sound Sustainability, a Seattle based start-up that provides affordable OTC hearing aids. By researching about hearing health and developing educational contents that focus on improving hearing health, our team strive to help our client’s start-up grow into the “Warby Parker” of hearing aids.
Design Process
Research
Through literature reviews, interviews, survey and market analysis, we collected information about hearing health and its current market.
Stigma
Our research showed that many people would not wear hearing aids because it makes them feel old or different.
Lack of Awareness
Many people do not pay attention to their hearing health until it is too late.
Competitive market
As companies like Bose published their OTC hearing aids device, in a large extent, it proves the future market of OTC hearing device.
HIPPA Compliant
Applications needs to uphold certain standard to ensure sensitive health information is safe.
User Flow
Wireframe
With the user flow, we designed a low fidelity prototype of our solution. This is to help give our team a general layout of the website. After we placed all of the main features, we were able to make the prototype interactive for user testing.
User Testing
I made our prototype interactive through figma. We were able to test it with four people whom we interviewed before. During the pandemic, we used a virtual think aloud technique to discover their thoughts on our product. The testing began with a simple task to achieve on the website, then we let them navigate through our website with minimum assistance. We had our participants describe out loud what they are thinking, feeling, and doing as they navigate through our website.
Not all of our interviewees were tech-savvy, so it was a bit challenging to set up everything with them on zoom. However, it gave us invaluable insights into our product because we wanted to make it as inclusive as possible.
Design
Build & Launch
After creating our high fidelity prototype, we were able to build our front-end web application using React.js. As for the backend, we implemented Google sign-in. And finally we hosted and deployed our website using Firebase.
Award
1st Place in Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge 2021
Top 16 in Dempsey Startup Competition 2021
Takeaway
Designing for an unfamiliar field: It is important understand and research about the field of hearing health and devices before making any design decisions. Applying any untested assumptions in the design could be detrimental.
Start-up experience: The beginning phase of a start up is full of changes. It is important to stay communicative with the clients to discuss any potential changes during the design process.
Building customer trust: by educating our potential customers, we enable our customers to make their own educated choices on selecting the best device for themselves.
Next Step
Merge product with other teams, including hearing test and devices.
acquire professional-tailored educational video for a better quality of education.