A mobile companion app set up to enhance the overall well-being of hearing aid users by improving their hearing experience.

Sonova x frog · Design Lead, UI Design, Animation

MyPhonak Hearing Aid App

The ask was to redesign the mobile flagship app for Sonova's Phonak brand, with a focus on integrating new health-related functionalities, as well as reducing overall complexity and friction in the mobile experience, and refreshing its overall look.

Project details

Sonova is one of the leaders in the hearing care solutions sector. The group and its brands hold 24% of the global hearing aid market in sales, and their products are recognised for their reliability and advanced technology.

As indicated by app store reviews, reception of the previous myPhonak hearing aid control app was only average, mainly related to usability and accessibility issues. Research unveiled that the overall UX & UI was perceived as being too medical and technical, not aligned with the latest trends, and not attractive enough for an increasingly competetive market. While the client had already started working on backend systems and SDK's, a joint design team took up the challenge to change the reputation of Sonova’s mobile flagship application.

The redesign approach was split into two main phases: foundation and detailed design. During the foundation phase the design team defined a design concept, and conceived new visual & interaction patterns, which were validated with users early on, and proved instrumental in shaping the MVP definition and scope for the upcoming phase. The directly succeeding detailed design phase was run agile, leveraging a high level of interaction with client stakeholders, and different development teams.

Entering the detailed design stage, the team maintained the design backlog and delivered more than 300 screens, an extensive UI toolkit, as well as an in-depth design documentation. All major flows, variations, and edge cases were covered and validated with stakeholders and users alike, to help the client build a solid and scalable app foundation.

The design direction aimed for assisting and empowering users through a straightforward visual language, and the use of rich infographics, supportive motion, and delightful details. In that respect, a set of interactive visualisations helped users better understand, interpret and memorise various sound settings and adjustments, enabling them to confidently influence and manage their hearing experience in a more sensual way. To ensure accuracy, the team collaborated with audiologists, while keeping the visual cues easy to understand, self explanatory and in line with the brand.

The team also revised a signature feature of the app and simplified its flow and access. The so-called ‚Remote Support‘ offered the possibility to enter a remote video call with an audiologist directly from the newly established dashboard. From there, users could engage in a conversation, share experiences and support needs with specialists, and receive updated fitting data for their hearing instruments in realtime. In addition to redesigning core hearing-related functionalities and services, a new health-focused section was added, which enabled users to review, analyze and learn from health and activity-related data captured by Phonak’s latest generation of hearing instruments.

The redesign of myPhonak leveraged a full agile workflow, bridging research & foundational design into a continuous delivery to development. The design backlog was key in setting up the processes to support an incremental product development, and enabled the client to drive the product definition, and include all business and medical stakeholders in the process through ad-hoc sessions on specific topics. The delivered UI toolkit and extensive in-depth documentation would enable Sonova’s UX team to build upon and elaborate on future iterations.