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Survey: Improving Hearing Aid App User Experience

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:wave: Hello everyone!

We’re a group of UC San Diego students conducting a short survey to better understand the experiences and needs of hearing aid users. Our goal is to gather honest feedback to help improve navigation, accessibility, and support within the hearing aid community. :speech_balloon::hear_with_hearing_aid:

:point_right: If you have a few minutes, please consider filling out our survey:
:link: Survey Link30

It’s quick, completely anonymous, and the information will only be used for research purposes.

Thank you so much for your time and support! :blue_heart:

9 people in this conversation8 min readJump to latest

If hearing aids are properly adjusted by your audiologist you don’t need an app. The app is just an extra distraction

Edited

It’s hard to argue with the simplicity of this statement. After all, when my ears used to work well, I didn’t have and app, and I was happy.

And apps can certainly cause frustration with problems like flaky Bluetooth connections and clunky user interfaces.

But hearing aids seem to be a series of tradeoffs, and I think it would be nice for the end user to be able to explore the range of capabilities of the hearing aid (within safe limits) without having to take a trip to the audiologist for each little tweak.

For example, I disable the buttons on my hearing aids. They were too easy to accidentally hit, and I use the app for whatever the buttons could do. At my last audiologist visit, the accidently re-enabled the buttons, and now I’m looking at another trip to get that fixed.

Edited
@rachell said:

We’re a group of UC San Diego students conducting a short survey to better understand the experiences and needs of hearing aid users.

Hi @rachell I live a few miles from UCSD :wave:. Thanks for creating the survey.

Like a lot of surveys it’s difficult for a multiple choice question to capture the range of experiences of the users. For example, the first question, “How often do you use a hearing aid companion app?”, in my mind, needs another choice “It’s complicated.” with a free-form answer to let me explain why it’s complicated. Most of the time, I rarely use the app, but when I’m having problems, or need to understand what’s going on I may use it daily or more.

In reply to @cvkemp

@cvkemp said:

If hearing aids are properly adjusted by your audiologist you don’t need an app. The app is just an extra distraction

Strongly disagree. I use the app when needed. For example, I may be walking outside with someone, and the aids detect noise, and suppress everything except forward facing noises. That’s normally great, but I can’t hear the person walking beside me. I quick tap on the app, change it to “Calm”, and I can hear them again.

Or I’m streaming via , and need to change the mic/BT ratio, or even mute the mics. Again, a quick visit to the app can do this.

Some of this can be done via the buttons on the aids, but it’s not always easy to find the right button, and then you may have to press it several times. Just use the app, quck & easy.

Not sure why you consider the app a distraction. Simply use it when you need it. Sometimes I’ll go days without using it, and others times I’ll use it several times a day. It’s not a distraction, it’s a benefit!

In reply to @bpeckham

I have had my same audiologist for 7 years, and I have been wearing Oticon aids for 15 years. The key is gave that partnership with your audiologist. My aids are the INTENT1 aids i put them in when I get up and forget about them until bedtime. I don’t have extra programs and seldom even adjust volume.

@cvkemp said:

If hearing aids are properly adjusted by your audiologist you don’t need an app

Probably better to state what best works for you rather than a blanket statement. Thats whats great about the options we have these days, you get to pick what works best for you. What works for others depends on personal likes and needs. To say we all dont need an app is a little bit of an overstatement. I personally like the app option but can see where others may not prefer using it. Even though i like the app, i would never claim, we have an app so dont need aid buttons. To each their own…

In reply to @astrohip

I will be honest and blunt your aids aren’t fitting correctly for your needs. I go to meetings, concerts, church services, and walking in the forest with no touching of my aids. I also ride a motorcycle and drive with the windows down.
They do their job .

Its okay to have different opinions, likes and dislikes. But you seem to imply that because we like or prefer the app, our aids are not adjusted properly and thats just not true. Many of us just like to have options and some flexibility, especially with new aids or as a new user. Many (most?) times our audi doesnt get the adjustments right the first time (or 2nd or 3rd time) and having some adjustability can help until we can get them re-adjusted, which may take multiple visits to get it “right”. I find the app very helpful. You dont. That’s something we can agree on!

I am a retired IT professional and in my opinion people use apps and computers as crutches instead of thinking for themselves.

Yeah I’m with chuck, the Apps are not needed if ones are dialed in, of course there’s always some that simply like to fiddle around making additional adjustments on the fly, for whatever reason they may have, one thing I’ve always disliked and do find as a distraction is having to pull the phone out, open the screen and then open the App, at times this wouldn’t be acceptable when in a meeting etc, I think your right tho that the younger generation embraces these things more.

In reply to @cvkemp

I get it, kinda. I was in CAD/CAM, manufacturing and old enough that when I started we were still doing most design, drafting, and machine programming manually. Once we went full CAD/CAM, i could program 10 times faster, with much more complexity (5+ axis over 3 axis, 3d designs), and less errors and sure am glad i had the computer as my crutch.
But to me its kind of like having my stereo system with eq all adjusted just how I like it. Its good for most music. But then i play some older 40’s-50’s music and may need to tweak some band’s of my eq to get the sound i like. Same with my aids in some circumstances.

In reply to @cvkemp

@cvkemp said:

I am a retired IT professional and in my opinion people use apps and computers as crutches instead of thinking for themselves.

You do love your blanket statements, don’t you? I too am a retired IT guy, wrote programming for 30+ years, in addition to running businesses. One thing I learned is to keep an open mind.

To say my devices aren’t adjusted properly, without knowing how or why I use an app, is short-sighted. Do you use a PartnerMic? I love mine, and sometimes I need to tweak the aid/mic ratio. Open the app… boom, done. Want to choose a specific program like “Music”, for going to a performance? Done.

All (or most) of these can be done on the device itself, but it takes a few clicks of the right buttons. I find it easier to do this via an app. I don’t “fiddle”, I don’t play with it during meetings. I’m 69, it ain’t a younger generation thing.

One reason I was a successful software creator was my ability to listen to my users needs. I didn’t give them what I want, I gave them what they needed, and what they wanted. One size does not fit all. What works for you, may not work for others. They aren’t wrong, they are doing what works for them.

Im with you. 65 y.o., so i don’t feel its a young person thing. Seems odd that many of the same ones that say, set it and forget it, are the same ones that say we all have different loss and what works for one person may not work for another. Or that there is no “best” aid, because again, our hearing is all so unique and we all have personal preferences. Seems to be a discrepancy in statements.

In reply to @astrohip

Let ask a question. But first let me say this i was in my thirties before the personal computer came along. I started out as an electronics technician, advanced to engineering, my specialty was and still is troubleshooting. I have been a lifetime learner, analyst. I am almost 78 and I am still learning. I study what ever grabs my interest or I need to learn to troubleshoot something. I even studied audiology because I wasn’t happy with my audiologists in my early days of wearing aids. I studied theology because I wasn’t happy with what pastors were telling me. I have studied nutrition because I wasn’t happy with my doctors were telling me. I am mo studying about my vision issues as I don’t trust what my eye doctor is telling me. At almost 78 i have never been hospitalized or had an illness worse than the flu. No I didn’t get COVID.
I see computers, smartphones as necessary evils. I don’t allow them to control my life.
My question is this do you really need the apps or are they your crutch so you don’t have to think for yourself. To be honest I only have a smartphone because I depend on having my phone calls streamed to my aids. I also listen to audiobooks and use text to speech because of my vision…
But I don’t use any apps that I don’t have to. And by the way I don’t take any prescription drugs.

In reply to @cvkemp

@cvkemp said:

I am a retired IT professional and in my opinion people use apps and computers as crutches instead of thinking for themselves.

I sort of agree. It’s a bit like Roger devices. The better your aids are programmed, the less you’ll need them.

In reply to @Jinxed

@Jinxed said:

Seems odd that many of the same ones that say, set it and forget it,

Most likely someone is misunderstanding what that actually means.

@Jinxed said:

the same ones that say we all have different loss and what works for one person may not work for another.

Misunderstanding yet again?

@Jinxed said:

Or that there is no “best” aid, because again, our hearing is all so unique and we all have personal preferences

This is correct, glad you got that right.

@Jinxed said:

Seems to be a discrepancy in statements.

Another misunderstanding? Oh ok those statements are…well as they mean, nothing at all to do with Apps? That’s a whole different situation, hopefully you understand this difference, because it’s quite important when choosing or how you program them, one doesn’t choose HAs on what an App can do, cheers

In reply to @cvkemp

@cvkemp said:

My question is this do you really need the apps or are they your crutch so you don’t have to think for yourself.

I’ve given multiple examples of how I use the app. You can answer your own question at this point.

It’s clear those of us who disagree with you are wrong. We probably get sick on occasion, maybe we had Covid, and we probably take a prescription drug if needed. We can’t live up to your standards, whether they be medical, theological, or auditory.

Have a nice life.

I am not say you are wrong I am just asking a question of if it is really needed or not. I want you to really think about if your aids are really adjusted as wrll as they could be. Are you making the adjustments with the app because that is the only way to get what you want or is it possible that your audiologist could make that adjustment permanent and automatically available when you need it. Why am I doing this? Well because there was a time about five years ago that I was depending on the app. I went around with my phone in my hand all the time. I started thinking about all of the wasted time. The time I was fiddling with my aids and app and not paying attention to my friends, family or the church services or improvement meeting information. Once I started thinking about it I was wasting time and missing important information.

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