Hearing Impairment
Using design to address stigma and usability.
Karten Design partnered with Starkey to break down the emotional barriers keeping people from wearing a hearing aid, and to build products good enough to be worn on purpose, not just tolerated.
Client
MedVectorStarkey
Category
Hearing Health
Product
Livio AI Hearing Aid
Services
5 Disciplines
The Situation
Starkey makes some of the most technologically advanced hearing aids on the market. There’s just one problem, no one wants a hearing aid. More than 48 million Americans live with hearing loss, but the average person waits seven years from the point a hearing aid could help them to the point they actually buy one.
That gap isn’t about the technology. People associate traditional hearing aids with age, disability, and weakness. For Starkey to grow, we had to design around emotional barriers, not just functional ones.
The Solution
Driven by more than a decade of in-depth customer research, Karten Design introduced functional innovation across Starkey’s entire product line, including the first touch-operated hearing aid and Starkey’s first made-for-iPhone hearing aid. With a dynamic new design language that borrows visual cues from modern architecture, jewelry and automotive design, we’ve helped overcome the stigma surrounding hearing aids while making them easier to use.
And we’ve been widely praised for our work. The K:D designed Livio AI hearing aid was awarded as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Inventions of 2019.
What We Did
Five disciplines, one long relationship
Design Strategy
Design Research
Industrial Design
Digital Design
Mechanical Engineering
Thanks to Karten Design, we've been able to minimize not just the physical barriers around using a hearing aid, but the emotional barriers. Their research has helped us understand our customers as people with complex emotions and motivations, and it has transformed our approach to product development.
Deborah Corti —former Principal Product Line Strategist, Starkey
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