Starting a test meant jumping between screens, mid-session.
Tests, participants and calibration lived in different corners of the app. Six of eight technicians named start-up as their #1 friction.
Earture
On-site hearing tests with a workflow that has a spine.
A web and iPad app for CAOHC-certified technicians running hearing tests at client facilities — rebuilt around one guided workflow.
Case study · occupational health≈ 4 min read
Impact
Session setup, roughly halved.
01~50%
Faster session setup — from ~20 min to under 10
021h+
Recovered per technician per site day
034
Guided steps now cover ~90% of the test process
Across 20–50 technicians, up to 8 participants a session ✦Operational impact
The short version
01 · Problem 02 · What I did 03 · Result
Rebuilt everything around one guided workflow.
Four steps — mobile unit, bio simulator, seats, calibration — with live status for every seat on one screen.
Setup from ~20 minutes to under 10.
New technicians started running sessions without a supervisor. Over an hour recovered per technician per site day.
My role
Product Designer, questions to final flows.
A 12-week redesign. Live shadowing wasn’t allowed inside sessions, so I ran structured questionnaires through the technician team lead and let that signal anchor the work.
- 1
Questionnaires
Structured questions via the technician team lead.
- 2
Sketching
Three directions on paper before committing.
- 3
Guided workflow
Four steps covering ~90% of the process.
- 4
Live testing
Per-seat status and dot-timelines.
- 5
IA & final flows
Sitemap and rebuilt flows, in order.
01Problem & research
The old system made simple things hard.
Technicians jumped between screens to start a test, track who was where and check calibration. Setup ran long, small mistakes compounded, and new technicians needed a supervisor.
How I researched
Live shadowing wasn’t possible — on-site testing doesn’t allow observers inside sessions. I ran structured questionnaires through the technician team lead instead. Six of eight technicians reported the same friction.
F.01
Starting a test was the #1 friction
Six of eight technicians called the initiation flow confusing — especially newer ones.
F.02
Onboarding took too long
New technicians needed too many hours to become independent.
F.03
Participant management was stressful
Managing participants live meant hopping between screens.
F.04
No hierarchy, no feedback
No progress or error states — technicians couldn’t tell if an action had worked.
The takeaway wasn’t “make the UI cleaner.” It was “give the workflow a spine.”
That shifted the redesign from UI polish to restructuring the whole experience around task flow and decision-making.
02Ideation & conceptual design
Three directions before committing.
A
Improve the existing interface with small simplifications.
B
A step-based guided workflow.
✓ Chosen, combined with CC
A centralised dashboard for more control.
✓ Chosen, combined with BA guided workflow inside one centralised interface.
The combination reduces cognitive load and moves users through tasks in order.
A couple more navigation steps - accepted.
In exchange: fewer user errors and a shorter session setup. In this context it was a clear trade.
03Why I made this call
Unifying calibration and seats was operational, not aesthetic.
In the old flow, technicians context-switched mid-session while participants were already seated — and lost their place, or recalibrated what they’d already calibrated.
- 1One progressive interface
Calibration and seat assignment live together, with real-time seat status — nothing held in short-term memory.
- 2A sidebar that is structural
Mobile unit → bio simulator → seats → calibration. A cognitive offload tool for someone managing eight people under time pressure.
- 3~90% of the process, 4 steps
Roughly 90% of the testing process now moves through four defined steps with clear instructions.
04Highlights of the design
Four steps, in the order the work happens.
01
Select mobile unit
The flow starts with the vehicle, not the equipment — pick the wrong unit and everything downstream is wrong. Status (Available, In Use, In Maintenance) is visible before a technician can tap in.
02
Select bio simulator
Bio simulators expire, and an expired one invalidates the whole test. Expired units are disabled, not hidden — technicians see why something can’t be picked. Up to two for redundancy.
03
Assign seats (equipment)
Hardware to hardware only — simulators and headphones to seats, no participants yet. In the old interface those two jobs blurred together.
04
Calibration
Seats calibrate one by one or all together, each with its own progress state. One failed seat never blocks the five working ones next to it.
05Running the test
See how every test is going - without opening it.
A dot-timeline per frequency, per ear. A failed threshold shows up red, right there, instead of in a report after the fact.
Two surfaces, on purpose
A read-only strip for a glance at who’s where, and an editable, session-grouped table underneath for the actual work. In the original, both were editable — and technicians didn’t know which one to touch.
06Information architecture & final flows
Mapped before Figma, rebuilt in the right order.
Login, setup, testing — each step in the right order, nothing where it wasn’t needed.
07Business impact
Faster, more reliable on-site hearing tests.
Across 20–50 technicians running sessions with up to eight participants each.
~50%
Faster session setup — ~20 min to under 10
1h+
Recovered per technician per site day
4
Guided steps cover ~90% of the process
2–8
Seats, one interaction model — no retraining
New technicians no longer need a supervisor. The flow guides itself.
Real-time calibration status per seat — Calibrated, Needs Calibration, Error — removed a class of silent failure. In occupational health, an invalid test isn’t a bad experience. It’s a compliance problem.
08What I’d do differently
Measure what the design can’t prove on its own.
The design removes obvious friction. Usage data is what tells you whether technicians actually use it the way it was intended.
Time to first test, and calibration restarts.
Per session — and whether technicians use the collapsed seat view or ignore it.
A moderated first session for new technicians.
More steps in exchange for clarity was right for experienced users. New technicians need their own check that the guided flow doesn’t create anxiety.
