Connexx B2B tool facelift

Connexx is the desktop software hearing care professionals use every day to fit Signia hearing aids. Version 10.0 needed a modern look without disturbing the muscle memory of the people who live in it. I helped run a moderated usability test of the refreshed interface with twelve professionals across the UK and Germany, then turned what I saw into the changes that shipped.

Connexx 10.0 is fitting software: HCPs use it to run hearing tests, tune sound, and manage patient data in the shop. The brief asked for a facelift: a new flat illustration style, refreshed Signia iconography, an updated colour palette. One hard rule shaped all of it. I could not touch the UX workflows, the codebase ruled that out, so I solved every problem in the visual layer.

Software people live inside

Connexx is specialised fitting software. An audiologist or dispenser opens it in the shop to run hearing assessments, customise sound for a patient, manage their history, and get the hearing aids performing. Many HCPs use it daily, so interface familiarity is high, and any change risks breaking the muscle memory built over years.

That is what made the brief sharp. The look had to move forward; the flows could not. Connexx is a legacy Windows application, and its codebase did not allow functional change, so the facelift carried all the weight: a new flat illustration style, refreshed Signia iconography, and a new colour palette, layered onto screens whose information architecture stayed exactly where users expected it.

I owned the redesign and ran the research

I was the designer on the facelift. I owned the visual redesign across the high-frequency fitting screens and the Figma component library behind it, co-authored the moderated test script, and built the clickable prototype in both languages. I ran the UK sessions myself and sat in on the German sessions at EUHA as note-taker, then turned the feedback into the changes that shipped.

Two HCPs, opposite habits

Before designing, I built two personas from the panel’s profiles and pre-interviews to anchor the decisions. The facelift had to serve both at once: keep the expert’s flow intact while making the occasional user’s re-entry faster.

What I kept, and why

Not every inherited choice was debt. Some conventions did real work, and the discipline of a facelift is knowing which ones to leave alone. The one that mattered most was the ear colour coding, shared across Connexx, the companion apps, and Signia marketing.

Before and after

Same Basic Tuning screen, same controls in the same places. The facelift redrew the chrome, the icons, and the palette and opened up the white space, while the workflow underneath stayed exactly where users expected it.

Before Signia Connexx · the layout HCPs had used for years

After Connexx 10.0 · flatter chrome, refreshed icons, more white space

Red right, blue left · a Signia convention HCPs and patients already share · kept untouched

The redesign, screen by screen

I owned the visual redesign across the screens HCPs touch most. Each kept its workflow and changed only its surface. The captions name the decision, not the pixels.

Client list · where every fitting starts · open an existing client, or add a new one

Hearing aid detection · the new Connect & Detect flow · devices in range, red right and blue left

Configuration · the controls cluster reordered and relabelled · the screen Task 4 stumbled on

Program Handling · predefined programs, one tap to add · “simply presented, not nested”

German prototype build · the workflow underneath is identical to the English version

A component library for Connexx

The facelift could not stay a loose set of screens. The same parts repeated everywhere: the red and blue device cards, the gain graphs, sliders, program pills, dialogs, the secondary-nav flyout. So I standardised them into a reusable Connexx component library in Figma. It held the redesign consistent screen to screen, made handoff to engineering legible, and gave whoever came next a system to build on instead of a pile of mockups. I shipped the new screens; the library is how the team keeps them coherent after I left.

Six tasks, two languages

The moderated test ran on a clickable Figma prototype, in German and English, with twelve HCPs whose experience ranged from two to forty years. I ran the five UK sessions remotely myself; the seven German sessions at EUHA I attended in person as note-taker. Six scripted tasks, each with a defined start state, a goal, and a success criterion, plus a follow-up question like “do you think the hearing aids are now connected?” I scored every task as completed unaided, completed with a hint, or failed. Twelve participants covered both markets and the daily-versus-occasional split, past the point where new issues kept surfacing.

Six scripted tasks · German in person at EUHA, English remote in the UK · Task 4 is where it broke down

What worked, what to fix

Twelve of twelve completed five of the six tasks without help. Task 4, setting a rocker-switch trigger in Configuration, needed hints for four of them, and that pointed straight at navigation and labelling. The praise and the pain split cleanly.

What worked

• Structure read as tidier and more equalised than before
• Landing on Data Logging matched what HCPs wanted to see first
• The Connect & Detect dialog was self-explanatory; the Connect button was spotted immediately
• Red and blue coding let people identify left and right at a glance
• Distinct, clearer icons in the secondary navigation
• Program Handling read as simple, not nested: “beautiful, with the hook on the left”

What to improve

What shipped

These findings shipped as UI changes in the Connexx 10.0 release: one fix per pain point, numbered to match the four findings above.

• 01 · Readable hierarchy: larger body font, desaturated section titles, and real contrast between cards, dividers, and background to break the wall of white.
• 02 · Language that matched users: “Data Insights” renamed to “Data Logging,” the Personalisation / Configuration / Program Handling cluster reordered, and tooltips added to the secondary-nav icons.
• 03 · Clear connection status: a connected / disconnected state pill replacing the easy-to-miss “Simulation” badge, and a stronger left/right side indicator.
• 04 · A safer Connect & Detect flow: a Disconnect button on the post-connect screen, no pre-selected “New fitting,” and secondary detail collapsed into an expandable section.