Awareness needs
to happen now.
Users wanted clear decibel readings and notifications when the environment became loud enough to matter.
DeciPal
Hearing damage is easy to ignore until it becomes personal.
DeciPal was created as part of a university awareness project focused on the risks of repeated exposure to loud noise, including hearing loss and tinnitus.
Instead of building another passive decibel meter, we explored how live feedback, personalised health information and a playful virtual companion could make hearing protection easier to understand and more motivating for young adults.
01 - WHAT RESEARCH ESTABLISHED
Awareness needs
Information has
to feel personal.
Exposure statistics and short recommendations were more useful when they reflected the user's own environment, habits and symptoms.
Warnings alone
do not build habits.
Participants responded to an animal companion, streaks, rewards, challenges and playful interactions as reasons to return.
02 - CHALLENGE
The risk is invisible.
The behaviour is habitual.
Loud music, clubs, festivals and everyday listening can expose young people to harmful noise without creating an immediate sense of consequence.
The challenge was to make that risk understandable in the moment without turning the experience into a clinical, alarming or information-heavy health tool.
03 - APPROACH
Turn invisible exposure into something users can see, understand and act on.
Make the risk visible in the moment.
Give people a reason to care after it passes.
User interviews • Benchmark research • Persuasive design patterns • Prototyping • Usability testing
04 - OUTCOME
Decibels became meaningful feedback.
Live readings are paired with a clear risk state, immediate guidance and a visual reaction from DeciPal instead of leaving users to interpret a number alone.
Exposure became a personal story.
Noise history, symptoms and contextual information help users connect repeated exposure with how they actually feel over time.
Prevention became something to return to.
Challenges, streaks, rewards, mini-games and avatar customisation turn hearing-health awareness into an experience with reasons to come back.
05 - THE SOLUTION
Serious hearing information,
made immediate and approachable.
VISUAL SYSTEM
A playful identity, built around clarity.
The visual system balances a serious health topic with an approachable personality. Deep navy and soft off-white create a clear foundation, while purple and pink bring energy to actions, rewards and gamified interactions.
Work Sans provides a simple, legible hierarchy across live readings, risk states and supporting information, while the character adds warmth and recognition.
CUSTOM ICONOGRAPHY
One visual language across navigation, activities and rewards.
I created the app's icon set in Adobe Illustrator so the interface could keep a consistent visual character across navigation, listening environments, challenges, rewards and customisation.
The simple outlined style keeps the icons recognisable at small sizes while supporting the playful personality of the product.
AVATAR + PERSONALISATION
Turn risk into feedback users can feel at a glance.
DeciPal changes expression as noise moves between safe, moderate and high-risk levels, giving the decibel reading an immediate emotional layer.
Users can also spend Whisper Tokens on outfits and accessories, making the companion feel personal and giving the reward system a visible outcome.
LIVE AWARENESS
Do not just show the decibels. Explain what they mean now.
The home screen combines the live sound level with a Safe, Moderate Risk or High Risk state, a short recommendation and DeciPal's visual reaction.
The final interface also uses a conventional gear icon for settings after testing showed that the earlier account-style icon was harder to recognise.
EXPOSURE WITH CONTEXT
A graph is useful only when the user knows what to do with it.
Daily, weekly and monthly views turn noise exposure into a pattern. Minimum, maximum and average values are paired with a personalised assessment rather than presented as isolated statistics.
SYMPTOM TRACKING
Connect exposure to what the user actually experiences.
Users can log symptoms such as headaches or ringing in the ears together with intensity, mood and the environment in which they occurred.
Testing showed that the original overview was too easy to overlook, so daily, weekly and monthly reports were brought into one clearer statistics experience.
CHALLENGES + MINI-GAMES
Learning does not have to feel like reading health advice.
Daily challenges turn hearing-protection actions into small achievable tasks, while educational mini-games introduce bite-sized hearing knowledge through play.
During testing, participants could navigate to these areas successfully and repeatedly described the playful elements as a reason the experience felt engaging rather than clinical.
MOTIVATION
Protect the companion. Build the habit.
Completing challenges keeps a daily streak and earns Whisper Tokens that can be spent on outfits, accessories and other customisation for DeciPal.
The final concept keeps the avatar central because testing showed that the dog, accessories and streak were among the strongest reasons participants said they would return.
06 - REFLECTION
Health awareness does not have to feel clinical. It still has to feel trustworthy.
DeciPal taught me how behavioural design can support a serious health topic without relying only on warnings. The playful layer gave users a reason to engage, while the live readings, personalised statistics and symptom tracking kept the purpose grounded in real hearing-health decisions.
Ed Controls
