Business Problem
Online hearing aid stores offer free hearing tests to engage potential customers, but these tests are often long and tedious, leading to user frustration. As a newcomer, Orka needs to provide an enjoyable, accurate hearing test to boost user engagement and increase website user acquisition.
Solution
We created the Orka Hearing Screening, an online hearing test that merges professional pure-tone testing with friendly and playful interactions that encourages users to discover their hearing abilities and increased rate of hiorka.com sign-ups.
My Role
Timeline
Tools
Onboarding
To guarantee precise test results, we guide users through setting the right volume on their earphones before starting the test.
Gamification the experience
To boost user engagement and make pure-tone testing enjoyable, we use animations to visually represent sound frequencies during screening.
Tailored results
After the screening, users receive personalised hearing recommendations, including Orka product suggestions, enhancing conversion rates.
Our Approach
01 Research
Secondary research
Benchmark analysis
02 Design
Brainstorming
Rapid prototyping
UI design
High-fi prototyping
Branding
03 Evaluate
Usability testing
Survey
My Contribution
As Lead UX Designer, I conducted benchmark research, facilitated collaboration among product managers, audiologists, engineers, and brand designers, and crafted high-fidelity UI prototypes for usability testing.
Hearing test type research
Product manager Ling Chen initiated this research and found that pure-tone audiometry is ideal for online hearing tests due to its minimal equipment needs, allowing users to test their hearing at home. Other methods, like bone conduction and speech audiometry, require specialized equipment or professional interaction, making them less suitable online. Thus, we decided to design a digital version of pure-tone testing.
Benchmark analysis
I researched online hearing tests from brands like Oticon, Widex, Starkey, Signia, and Phonak, finding they mostly use pure-tone testing. While accurate, this method is dull and may deter full participation. This presents an opportunity for Orka to adopt a more engaging design, boosting user engagement and distinguishing itself from other brands.
Brainstorming
With our research findings, I organised brainstorming sessions with our product manager, engineers, and designers, encouraging a broad range of ideas. After the brainstorm workshop, we clustered ideas and decided to start with the following 2 ideas:
A) Real-time audiogram mapping the user's hearing thresholds during the test
B) Dynamic sound wave visualise the pitch
Rapid prototyping
Since the screening relies heavily on dynamic interaction, we quickly crafted interactive prototypes using ProtoPie. I developed proposal A (real time audiogram mapping), my intern Gang Chen developed proposal B (dynamic sound wave).
User testing process
For our first round of user testing, we guided testing sessions with five colleagues from different department. Here's a brief overview of the process:
Introduce the project goal, and build rapport.
Describe the scenario, set up the context, and let users use the app while thinking out aloud.
Ask open-ended questions and gather feedback.
Feedback
User preference
4 out of 5 users prefer the Concept A ( the rest one is neutral) They said Concept A made them feel more secure and engaged than B. Especially the visual recording of every pitches.
Obstacles
Things to improve
The instant visual feedback while pressing a button indicates the test result to users. Some users want to make the dots on larger Y-axis secretly. We need to make sure the visual feedback is unrelated with the users hearing threshold in iteration design.
In addition, the software developer points out recording sound frequency visually in real time on UI is very difficult to develop. So, the iteration design should be feasible for engineer to develop.
Focus on top priority problem
Responding to user feedback, our top problem to solve is “ How can we make the rich interacting feedback but avoid user predicting the outcome of the test?"
Ideate for the top question
We decided to discard proposals A and B and create a new design. I led a brainstorming workshop, resulting in the idea to display audio symbols as users interact with repetitive sound frequencies, maintaining engagement during pure tone audiometry.
Prototyping and user testing
Working with brand designer, Hans, we developed a new prototype with the onboarding setup and tutorial. Then with product manager, we posted the test hiring info within the company and let the participants do competitors' hearing screenings before trying our new design, allowing for a direct comparison with existing market products.
Evaluate the design
To understand how well the design worked, I split the big goals into smaller, specific targets and created a questionnaire to get clear answers.
Results
I was able to gather a lot of positive feedback on the user testing. Here's a summary of how 7 participants rate their experience from the test.
Date Range: May 16, 2022 - August 19, 2022
Entered Hearing Test introduction Page: 4300 users
Started Test: 890 users
Completed Test: 580 users
Purchased Hearing Aids: 191 users
Completion Rate: Approximately 13% of users who visited the page completed the hearing test.
The primary drop-off point was between the initial entry to the hearing test page and the start of the test, indicating a need for improved strategies at this stage.
Of the 580 users who completed the hearing test, 33% went on to purchase hearing aids.
The project was successful in terms of user engagement and conversion. However, the primary drop-off rate highlighted an area for improvement in introduction page engagement. To address this, the team has improved onboarding instructions and integrated this into the "Am I a candidate" survey campaign to increase the test initiation rate.