Disvoice: Application to Support Speech using Mobile
The challenge
The speech therapist needed a mobile application that would help treat children with speech disorders called dyslalia. This application should encourage the child to perform the speech-language therapist exercises and the speech therapist could monitor some statics, listen to recordings of how the child pronounced the exercises so that the speech therapist could interpret the results according to his purpose of treatment.
Methodology
I used as a methodology the Design Thinking which consists of the following steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
empathize
I interviewed three speech therapists to understand how they work with children and the main characteristics of children with dyslalia.
Those three speech therapists worked in three different places: A local public agency, a Non-Governmental Organization to assist autistic children and a private clinic. I visited each speech therapists separately and we spoke about their treatment types and treatment achievements. The knowledge I gained from these interviews was priceless, directing me to their needs and children needs such as an accessible device (cost and level of difficulty of use).
define
I created personas to represent the main users before starting with the app design. These deliverables help to keep the end user in the forefront of the design process.
Ideate, Prototype, and Test
I developed a mind map about Disvoice to present to interested people.
Final product
Please see the academic article about this work:
Then, I created low-fidelity wireframes to map out the app structure and screen layouts. These were important for communicating the design vision and getting early feedback from the speech therapist, patients, and their parents.
As a result of the tests carried out with the speech therapist, and patients through the presentation of prototypes, user interactions, observation and questioning, the wireframes went through a couple rounds of iteration as final content was developed.
