Facilitating engagement through playful design that keeps children motivated during therapy.
ROLE
TEAM
1 Product Manager
1 Product Designer
10 Developers
DURATION
September 2024 - Present
IMPACT
Designed a mobile app from 0 → 1
Overview
Texas Hearing Institute is the most comprehensive pediatric hearing loss organization in Texas, dedicated to empowering children with hearing loss from infancy through age 21.
In addition to offering specialized audiology, speech therapy, early childhood education, family support services, and professional expertise, Texas Hearing Institute (THI) aims to provide engaging, effective tools to help children improve their speech perception and auditory awareness.
As the sole designer on a RiceApps team, I led the design of a mobile application that transforms THI’s therapy tests into a digital platform, collaborating closely with developers to ensure a seamless integration of design and functionality.
Our Goal
Design an engaging and accessible therapy experience to help children stay motivated during therapy.
We aimed to reimagine traditional therapy tasks as a more rewarding and interactive experience, helping children stay engaged while reducing the cognitive load on clinicians. By introducing playful visual feedback and intuitive interactions, our goal was to make therapy sessions feel less repetitive and more effective for both children and the professionals guiding them.
The Problem
Existing methods fall short in maintaining children’s attention and driving consistent progress.
During initial meetings and an on-site visit with two clinicians, Jennifer and Peyton, we learned that Texas Hearing Institute lacks digital tools to streamline therapy sessions or offer meaningful positive reinforcement to children. They currently conduct testing with paper-based activities, which have become less effective overtime.
User Research
How might we create a sense of accomplishment for children during repetitive therapy tasks?
After surveying 5 therapists and interviewing 2 speech audiologist at the Texas Hearing Institute, I found that clinicians are most concerned about the lack of interactivity in current testing methods.
Children often lose interest or focus during therapy sessions
“The nature of this type of therapy task is pretty boring… It is very repetitive and children often lose interest.”
There is not enough feedback to children to keep them engaged
“Younger children can have short attention span! Keeping the child engaged in activities is important!”
The current tool is outdated and thus, limits progress
“As the media and technology, grow over time, our standard picture book and vocabulary words become more outdated.”
Reward Mechanism Research
Exploring how other children’s platforms combine learning with entertainment.
To explore ways to improve engagement, I examined how apps use reward systems, such as visual feedback and animations, to motivate users and reinforce positive behavior. I observed that platforms like PBS Kids use lively pop-out animations, cheerful sounds, and musical cues in response to both correct and incorrect answers, creating a positive and encouraging environment.
Iteration
Refining the design to enhance visual appeal and simplify the workflow.
Throughout the design process, I continuously refined the interface to strike a balance between playful engagement and functional clarity. Based on feedback from the Team Leads, PMs, and internal reviews, I made several adjustments, such as improving functionality and fine-tuning interactive elements to ensure they were both intuitive and age-appropriate.
Add Profile
To make each child’s profile feel more personalized, I designed an avatar selection feature during the profile creation process. I explored different ways to present this interaction and how the emoji options would appear to users. To ensure the emojis were easily recognizable and selectable for children, I ultimately chose to enlarge them and design the layout to feel more visually clickable and intuitive.
Modal
Fun, interactive way for children to personalize their own profiles
May be difficult to select an emoji due to a lack of spacing
Does not follow HIPAA guidelines
Expanded page
Fun, interactive way for children to personalize their own profiles
Clear indication that the emojis can be selected
Follows HIPAA guidelines with the randomly generated usernames
Positive Reinforcement
Since one of the main pain points was the repetitive and unengaging nature of the therapy tasks, I focused on iterating ways to make them more visually appealing and interactive for children. Throughout this process, I also explored how to incorporate positive reinforcement through visual cues, ensuring that encouragement felt both immediate and meaningful.
Simple animation
Emoji animation that reflects the emoji of child’s choice
Limited use of positive reinforcement
Animation paired with positive affirmation
Emoji animation that reflects the emoji of child’s choice
Positive reinforcement with verbal phrases
Past Sessions
To support clinicians in tracking a child’s progress, it was essential to make past sessions easily accessible and quick to retrieve. I wanted to place this feature in a location that felt intuitive—readily available without interfering with more immediate tasks.
Accordion view
Allows the user to view all past sessions
May become too large overtime
Unable to find specific sessions based on the session characteristics
Separate page with filter
Allows the user to view all past sessions
Easily accessible but not immediately visible in the new location
Can find relevant sessions with ease using the filters
Design System
Ensuring that the design system supports a playful, approachable, and consistent experience.
Typography
Primary Color
Text, important action items, accent, and section backgrounds
Secondary Color
Secondary text, text boxes, and accent
Buttons
Primary Button
Secondary Button
Final Product
A new, interactive approach to speech and audiology therapy.
Add a personal touch to the profile
Choose an emoji avatar and receive a fun, randomly generated username to make the profile feel personal and playful.
Interact with lively animations after answering each question
Fun animations after each response to boost engagement and provide positive feedback throughout the therapy session.
Input and view relevant session notes and details that will be stored in-app
Easily document notes for each session, viewable alongside relevant results within the session details.
Conveniently retrieve any past session with the filters
Looking for any specific session results from the past? Use filters to narrow results by date, test type, and accuracy.
Final Thoughts
Be flexible with your workflow
Collaborating closely with developers taught me the importance of staying adaptable. Working on a fast-paced timeline meant I had to prioritize efficiency, making quick and thoughtful design decisions while ensuring they were ready for handoff without delaying development. I learned how to align my process with the needs of the broader team, balancing design quality with tight deadlines and shifting priorities.
Learn to navigate constraints in user research
Due to privacy concerns and limited access, I was unable to speak directly with the children who would be using the product. Combined with a tight developer timeline, this meant relying more heavily on insights from clinicians and secondary research. While not ideal, I was challenged to think creatively about how to stay user-centered, even when the end users themselves are not easily accessible.
Understand your users beyond the surface
Designing for children required a deeper level of research to understand what keeps them engaged and motivated. Aside from meeting with the clinicians, I also explored how existing platforms for children utilize various types of reward mechanisms to create stimulating, positive experiences. This process reminded me that understanding your target users often goes beyond identifying their pain points; it requires empathy, creativity, and additional research to uncover what resonates with them and how to design in a way that genuinely supports their needs.