2025
Reimagining how early learning signals emerge around each child
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Case Study

Lena Foundation

What We Did
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Industrial Design
Experience Design
Product Development engineering
Strategy Design
REDESIGNED LENA DEVICE AND DOCK
Early Childhood Development
LENA, an international non-profit, brings advanced interactive language tech into classrooms to end language isolation. We were tasked with defining the next generation of their strategy, systems, and product experience.
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Boosting Interaction, Child-by-Child
Early childhood outcomes are shaped by everyday moments of back-and-forth interaction. Tracking conversational turns, LENA  measures child interactions and optimizes early language environments. Conversational turns as a metric is among the strongest predictors of educational and socio-emotional development, estimating a child’s reading levels, social engagement, neurodiversity, and more.
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A redesigned classroom wearable
The new Talk Pedometer is housed in a redesigned, breathable vest that fits children ages 0–6. After class, devices dock to recharge and upload data, which an AI backend converts into actionable teacher insights to improve learning outcomes. Together, these elements form an integrated system that disappears into the rhythm of the classroom.
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IN CLASS CO-CREATION AND RESEARCH
Co-creating for Scale
Talking to 40+ teachers and observing 18 classrooms across the country uncovered the pain-points of the current system. We tested several product concepts that used different attachment methods, ran different setup and clean-up experiments, and gathered in-depth feedback from teachers and students through design co-creation sessions.
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USER RESEARCH AND SYNTHESIS
Insights Synthesized into Actions
Following extensive research and co-creation with teachers and students, on-the-ground findings were synthesized into a strategic blueprint for the LENA Foundation for the next 10 years of innovation. A coherent innovation strategy allowed us to design a new product architecture that was ready to take on the chaos of the classroom environment.
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Privacy and Discretion First
Privacy was a core design constraint from the beginning. The system does not store, replay, or transmit raw audio – it tracks utterances. Sound is processed locally to extract anonymized metrics, including adult word counts, child vocalizations, and conversational turns.
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Manufacturing at Scale with Realism
LENA was designed to scale from the outset, and the core design intent was meticulously maintained through the product development process.
During product development and preparation for manufacturing, we designed the directional acoustic hardware to isolate a child’s voice, shaping enclosure decisions from material choice to wall thickness. In parallel, the classroom dock was conceived as both charger and edge computer, using readily available components to support reliability, affordability, and repairability at scale.
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What Lena Unlocks
Our reimagined product experience enables global scalability while staying classroom-first. By prioritizing usability, comfort, and classroom fit, the new generation of LENA hardware drives adoption while helping teachers reach more children earlier and improve learning outcomes.
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