C4DM Seminar: Designing and Evaluating auditory-cognitive training through the HEaring and LIstening eXperience (HELIX) app
QMUL, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Centre for Digital Music Seminar Series
Seminar by: Emily Frost-Garman
Date/time: Wednesday, 7th May 2026, 3 pm
Location: TBA, Mile End
Title: Designing and Evaluating auditory-cognitive training through the HEaring and LIstening eXperience (HELIX) app
Abstract:
In recent years, serious games have become a promising way to support both auditory and cognitive training, especially because they help keep people motivated and engaged. In this seminar, I’ll share how we used a participatory design approach to create HELIX, a new auditory‑cognitive training app built around a sentence‑discrimination and recall task set within six everyday listening scenarios.
The development process involved two cycles of participatory design with 18 stakeholders, whose input shaped the structure, look, and functionality of the final app. We then evaluated HELIX through a randomised controlled trial with 43 participants, who used the app for four weeks and were followed up four weeks later. A range of outcome measures allowed us to look for signs of transfer beyond the trained tasks.
Although both the training and control groups improved on an untrained speech‑in‑noise task, we didn’t observe significant changes in the other outcome measures. However, participants’ reflections revealed meaningful perceived benefits, including increased awareness of their listening challenges, the development of new listening strategies, and positive behaviour changes.
I’ll discuss how participatory design ensured HELIX was genuinely aligned with user needs and where future research could go, particularly in extending training duration and refining how serious‑game elements are integrated to support auditory and cognitive health.
Bio:
Having started at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust as a graduate audiologist, I am now working as the Head of Audiology and Consultant Healthcare Scientists 13 years later. In that time I have worked as a research audiologist at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London in the Audio Experience Design team and went on to complete a PhD at Imperial. My research work has centred on involving users in design and my thesis focussed on co-designing and evaluating a new auditory-cognitive training application. My aim now is to endorse clinical research careers and involve stakeholders in everything that we do to bridge the gap between clinical care and innovation.