Nice and remote
As a junior UX designer with a Master's degree in Economics and Digital Strategy from the University Nice Côte d'Azur, and a minor in Innovation and creativity from Digital Systems for Humans, I have a strong fondation in emerging technologies and on the business vision of a project.
I am passionate about using design to create solutions for environmental and social projects, and I have a particular interest in IoT design. My current project, a collaboration with international UX designers from India and Los Angeles, focuses on creating a food waste solution utilizing IoT in homes.
I believe in the power of user research to inform and drive my design decisions, and I am always seeking new opportunities to use my skills and expertise to make a positive impact on the world around me.
Echoes
Timeline
1 month: Nov to Dec 2022
My role
UX designer, UI design
Tools
Figjam, Miro, Notion, Figma
As a hearing impaired or deaf, you can stay aware of what’s going on around you, right on your wrist.
Not hearing the phone ringing, someone knocking on the door or worse, the fire alarm, all these everyday noises, which seem commonplace, represent a real challenge for part of the population. This is why a group of students in their last year of a Master's degree, as part of an entrepreneurial project, wanted to find a solution. I was asked to help them create an IoT solution for these deaf and hearing impaired people whose daily life in their home is difficult.
The challenges
The main challenge was to provide an easy to use and inexpensive solution for the hearing impaired and deaf so that they can be aware, in real time, of the noises in their home. Moreover, the time given to propose a first version of the solution was very short: 1 month. In order to deliver qualitative deliverables, we moved forward in Agile mode.
But how can we create an effective and inexpensive solution for the deaf and hearing impaired people to feel in control in their house?
Overview of the project
Summary
Fact n°1
Fact n°2
Fact n°3
Hearing impaired and deaf people face several problems. According to research, they have a hard time hearing everyday noises: the door, appliances ringing, their baby crying or worse, the fire alarm and accidents.
Not hearing what is going on around them makes them frustrated and anxious. In general, they feel they have no control over their environment.
In addition, when it comes to technology, most rely on it to help them in their daily lives. Nevertheless, some point out that technology can be difficult to learn, which frustrates them. Also, not everyone has the opportunity to have a connected home, as the solutions available on the market today require investment in connected objects: smart door, smart fridge etc., which is expensive.
Problem statement
How to propose a simple and effective solution so that the hearing impaired and the deaf can be aware of what is happening around them, without necessarily having a connected house or investing in expensive objects?
My role
In this project, I worked closely with a product manager and a group of student entrepreneurs to lead the UX design process. My responsibilities included extracting insights from the research, creating an empathy map to better understand the users, conducting market analysis to understand the competitive landscape, leading the ideation phase and prioritizing features, creating low- and high-fidelity wireframes of the connected watch and the application, and creating a prototype of the connected watch.
Overall, my goal was to create a user-centered design that meets the needs and desires of the target community.
The solution
Introducing Echoes, a new solution for the hearing impaired and deaf community
Uses IA technology to detect and identify surroundings noises
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So you don't need to invest in a connected home
The application, through a connected watch, uses IA technology to detect and identify surrounding noises, alerting users with a discreet vibration system, without the need of a connected house. Our solution allows users to stay aware of their surroundings such as a doorbell, alarm, or even a baby crying.
Unlike other solutions on the market, Echoes does not require a connected home. The person only need a connected watch and the application, making it a convenient and less expensive solution for the hearing impaired and deaf.
Echoes also allows users to edit, categorize or delete sounds in the sound library. In addition, through the smartphone app, they can access the settings of connected objects if they have any as well as notification preferences.
The solution is available on a connected watch and also on a smartphone for more comfort when making changes.
My design approach
1. Deepening the research
To begin my UX design process, I built upon the research already conducted by the team and conducted additional market analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the target community. I also conducted secondary research to further immerse myself in the community and gain valuable insights.
3. Understanding the users
There are different levels of deafness, therefore, people expect technologies to be equally varied to address each specific problem. They are afraid to miss an important sound. Finally, most people consider wearing a bracelet that vibrates in order to be alerted to the various noises that can be heard in everyday life.
5. Testing and start again
I wanted to know what impressions people had of my initial solution ideas and, more importantly, what areas needed improvement. So I interviewed a few people, mainly doing A/B tests and asking them what they thought of the hi-fi wireframes.
2. Discovering the problem
People who are deaf or hard of hearing feel a lack of control over their environment, resulting in frustration and anxiety because they are unable to hear everyday sounds or may miss important events such as accidents or fire alarms. They also have difficulty performing daily tasks. Finally, they are dependent on technology but get frustrated when it is difficult to use.
4. Putting my ideas on paper
Then I started ideating and the main challenge was to design the "noise detection" and "sound identification" feature while taking into account even people who don't have a connected home.
6. Designing the solution
Finally, I refined the high-fidelity wireframes and created a prototype of the connected watch. This solution allows people to be aware of noises around them thanks to sound detection. They don't necessarily need to have a connected house.
First iteration example
to
Selected solution
to
The impact
100%
of people believe that this product can significantly improve their daily life. In particular with regard to the detection of surroundings noises
80%
of people are likely to adopt this solution
5/5
of people find the product easy to use
A comprehensive approach
Get to know the users better
Through our interviews with hard of hearing and deaf individuals, we have identified several challenges they face in their daily lives:
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Lack of control over their environment, leading to frustration and anxiety due to not being able to hear everyday sounds or potentially missing important events like accidents or fire alarms.
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Difficulty with everyday tasks, such as not being able to hear someone knocking at the door or knowing if appliances have rung or if a call has been missed. This can be so difficult that they rely on outside help.
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Dependence on technology to make their lives easier, but frustration when it is difficult to use.
"I have to constantly check to see if the microwave is finished or the toaster. All of these seemingly simple tasks become much more complicated and mostly frustrating on a daily basis."
To better understand the daily life of the hearing impaired and deaf
Based on the research conducted, I discovered some interesting facts:
💡 There are different levels of deafness, therefore, people expect technologies to be equally varied to address each specific problem.
💡 They are afraid of missing an important event: the baby crying, the phone ringing, the doorbell ringing...
💡 Most want a solution at hand and consider wearing a bracelet that vibrates to be alerted by the various noises that can be heard in everyday life.
To better understand these people, I also made an empathy map. Some interesting facts were found:
💡 They willingly rely on technology to help them hear better (hearing aids, connected objects with visual cues, ringtone signaling...) but get frustrated if it's hard to use it.
💡 They want to have peace of mind, without having to constantly wonder what's going on around them.
💡 They want to be more in control of their environment. To have this feeling, they thought of a bracelet that vibrates at every alert. This is because they want to be notified every time a noise is detected.
What potential solutions?
To get an idea of the potential features, I analyzed the different applications and connected watches dedicated to the hearing impaired and deaf that are proposed on the market. The objective was also to detect the problems of these solutions in order to identify an opportunity to propose an improved solution.
Thus, I noticed that the market mainly offered live transcription of TV, phone calls or conversations. But again, when it comes to everyday noises, they are not able to detect them unless the person has a connected home. However, this comes at a cost and all hearing impaired and deaf people should have the chance to have an affordable solution.
Common expectations
Based on all of these findings, I was able to come to the conclusion that the hearing impaired and deaf have several goals:
But also brakes on the technology
Nevertheless, there are some issues that constrain their adoption of the technology.
Finally, if we could summarize what these people want:
They would like a connected, easy-to-use bracelet/ watch that would notify them of noises in the house so that they can be informed of what is going on around them and thus be reassured.
Having this idea in mind, I wanted to see more clearly in order to move forward more easily and quickly in the design. To do this, I imagined potential features taking into account a few points:
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How to propose a solution without necessarily having a connected house?
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How to make this solution efficient?
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How to make this solution easy to use?
However, given the time constraints, we had to prioritize. So we made a quick brainstorming session to identify the main features together.
Thus, we identified together these priority features, taking into account the needs of the hearing impaired and deaf people. Indeed, their biggest frustration is the fact of not hearing the surrounding noises, which is why we decided to prioritize this feature.
Also, we chose to keep the history of notifications (and thus sounds), so that they could have a trace of the sounds emitted in case they missed them.
Indeed, among the interviewees, we faced another problem: although the vibration of the watch could be a suitable solution, one person also suffered from a pathology that desensitizes his wrist. Thus, she is not sure to feel all the vibrations. In order not to exclude this type of person, we set up a sound history so that, at a glance, they could see which sounds were emitted at first. Then, in order to make the solution more convenient for them, we plan to add light signals later.
First tests and iterations
I faced several challenges during the design of the connected watch. How to design the "noise detection" and "sound identification" feature while taking into account even people who don't have a connected home?
For this, and based on the value proposition of the product, I imagined a solution to detect surrounding noises, inspired by Shazam or Siri. Then thanks to AI, the watch is able to analyze what kind of sound it is. Thus, the person does not necessarily need to have a connected house. The solution is functional with or without a connected house.
Another challenge was related to the same feature, noise detection. How to distinguish between a noise already known by the solution's AI and a new noise? And what happens in both scenarios, what CTA to put in place for a consistent action?
So, for a sound already known, the wording I chose is "sound detected" to inform the person that a noise is in progress. She can see on her watch what the sound is and, inspired by the notifications on the Apple watch, I decided to add the CTA "dismiss". Therefore, the person is in control and can stop the vibrations.
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So, the question arose: how to make sure that users are not confused? In order not to let the person guess what to do next and make a bad experience, I added a CTA. Nevertheless, the choice of wording was challenging because of the size of the interface but also to not leave people confused.
The objective of the CTA is to let the person know what the noise is about.
Finally, after interviewing people, the most obvious choice was the "Discover" CTA that will lead the person to discover what the noise is all about.
Read the full explanation of my design choice.
Final solution
The goal of this project was to create a solution that would make daily life easier for hearing impaired and deaf individuals at home.
The main challenge was to develop a practical and reliable solution that did not require the user to have a connected home. To meet this challenge, we created an application for a connected watch that can detect sounds in the environment and use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the type of sound. The user can then add the identified sound to their personal library of sounds, which allows the AI to improve over time.
Unlike other solutions on the market, this solution does not require the user to have a connected home. It can work with or without one. The user also has control over each sound in their library, including the ability to replace, move, or delete it, which helps them feel more in control of their environment.
This solution has had a positive impact on the hearing impaired and deaf community. Most people who have tried it say they are likely to use it, they think it would greatly improve their daily lives and find it easy to understand and use.
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For more comfort for the person, we decided to add an application on smartphone where he can more easily modify his sound library. Moreover, she can manage her settings on it.
Other screens
Key takeways
WHAT I LEARNED
For this project, I worked closely with a product manager, which allowed me to have a global vision of the product. Based on the product playbook, the 4D framework and the Agile method, I was able to have a more concrete vision of product development.
MISTAKES AND STRUGGLES
One of the most challenging parts of this project was to really put myself in the shoes of deaf and hearing impaired people. Since I was not in charge of the research, I had to do more research in parallel to better understand these people.
WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENT NEXT TIME
Since the solution is adapted on a connected watch and on an application, I think it is better for the next times to dig more on how to make a responsive design.