Slep
Assisting generation Z urban young adults in progressively establishing healthy and beneficial sleep habits.
Target audience
Generation Z urban young adults, interested in new technologies, are prone to anxiety and severe insomnia due to academic or career pressures.
Duration
6 weeks (Fall 2022)
Tools
Adobe XD Sketch Adobe Illustrator Xmind
My Role
Personal UX Project
Background
The swift development of society, bringing increased workload and academic demands, has led to high levels of anxiety and related emotional issues among Generation Z young adults. This shift impacts their lifestyle and emotional health, with their daily routines clashing with natural sleep cycles.
Problem
Due to lifestyle changes and increased stress, poor pre-sleep habits and uncontrollable anxiety are causing Generation Z young adults to face insomnia. This insomnia further intensifies their pre-sleep issues and anxiety, exacerbating both their sleep problems and daytime anxiety, thus creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
Solution
Establish a system combining an app for emotional regulation and habit correction, a smartwatch for monitoring sleep data, and a smart speaker to create a tailored sleep-friendly environment, all aimed at progressively cultivating healthy sleep habits in Generation Z.
Final Display
Understand the problem
5W1H Question
Design Goals: Understand the causes and needs of insomnia in Generation Z youth, and design a good solution to help them have a good night's sleep.
Secondary Research
Sleeping well is important
Worry/stress is the most important factor affecting sleep quality (33%). Resource: Wake up call: global sleep satisfaction trends
Stress and poor lifestyle habits are the main reasons affecting the sleep quality of modern people.
53.6% of Internet users suffer from insomnia due to work-related stress.
Worry/Stress is the biggest enemy of high sleep quality.
Primary Research
Survey
Smart Home—Balluga Smart Beds
Many people suffer from poor sleep quality
Competitive Analysis
Wearable Device—AutoSleep
Product Positioning:
A smartwatch software designed to monitor and visualize sleep data.
Product Description:
Uses Apple Watch to detect data and perform statistical analysis and data visualization.
Pros:
Easy to operate; users just need to sleep.
Automatically monitors and collects accurate data.
Uses different colors for differentiation and comparison, making it intuitive.
Cons:
The software interface is cluttered.
Too many color choices, making it hard to discern.
The extensive visualization doesn't offer significant help to those with insomnia symptoms.
App—Tidal
Interview
5 Interview, 113 response
To gain a deeper understanding of the pain points, perspectives, and actions regarding insomnia among Generation Z individuals, I employed both survey and one-on-one interview methodologies for primary research. I conducted interviews with 5 participants and collected 113 valid questionnaires.
Insights from primary Research
Anxiety has been identified as the primary cause of insomnia among Generation Z, with mental health significantly affecting their sleep.
Nearly all participants reported that they find it easier to fall asleep when emotionally stable.
The habit of using cell phones before bed is the second leading cause of sleep disruption among them, as they cherish their nighttime freedom and engage heavily in entertainment.
There is a widespread belief that regular sleep habits can improve the ability to fall asleep.
The methods employed to address sleep issues vary greatly, indicating that the management of insomnia is highly individualized.
Most people tend to focus on strategies that either divert attention from stress or relax the body when dealing with insomnia.
The vast majority of Generation Z is receptive to the integration of new technologies, such as sleep monitoring, in managing their sleep.
More than half believe that having knowledge of their sleep patterns could help them sleep better.
Pros:
Can connect to smartphones.
Adjustable mattress softness.
Different vibration modes can be set for zoning.
Built-in air conditioning system.
Product Positioning:
An app designed to help users sleep, focus, relax, and meditate, equipped with white noise and a pomodoro timer.
Product Description:
Tidal offers features such as meditation, gentle wake-up, and an alarm clock. Additionally, it provides sleep monitoring for users.
Pros:
Easy to operate, and by introducing the concept of the pomodoro technique, it attracts a large number of students and creative professionals.
Daily varied greetings and background images give users a sense of being cared for. The software is very attuned to users' emotions.
Cons:
Expensive.
Not easy to assemble.
May lead to dependency.
Cons:
The market has many white noise apps, such as Little Sleep and taomix 2, which are more engaging than Tidal.
Tidal doesn't emphasize the completion of specific tasks, and there's no assurance that users won't exit sleep mode mid-process.
Persona
People play with their phones in bed
How might we help Generation Z break the cycle of insomnia and worsening emotions caused by poor pre-sleep habits and anxiety, ultimately achieving stable sleep?
23 essays 6 research reports
In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the current situation of insomnia among contemporary people, the causes of insomnia, and the various types of methods available that can solve insomnia-especially scientific and technological methods-and other information, I have collected 23 related papers, and 6 related research reports on insomnia from all over the Internet.
Design a solution
Problem Model
User Needs
Among these, Stabilized Mood and Habit Correction are the main needs of users, and belong to Must-be Quality.
Solution Thinking
Option one:
After brainstorming, I came up with two initial design options:
Option two:
Comparison Test
Round one
Option one:
10% of male participants believe that aromatherapy is not helpful, while 50% of female participants think it is beneficial.
80% of participants consider meditation to be a good idea, but 50% of them believe that meditation should not be the only option and that there should be other alternatives, such as appropriate exercise.
100% of participants agrees on music therapy, but there is significant disagreement over the choice of music.
Option two:
60% of participants believe they might not use this program but would rather play with their phones until they decide it's time to sleep. Then, they would activate the phone's lock feature to enter sleep mode.
Round two(Role reversal)
Option one:
40% of the respondents suggested that they have the habit of listening to music to fall asleep.
60% of the respondents still wanted to know how well they slept.
40% of respondents also felt that music was similar to noise and sometimes interfered with their sleep and needed to be taken into consideration.
Option two:
60% of respondents said the form of sleep monitoring is good, but its functionality could be enhanced, such as by allowing music listening or text message viewing during monitoring.
Problem-Solving Model
Information Architecture
The app has four main pages: Home, Explore, Report and Setting. The Explore page mainly provides all kinds of stories, audios, games, etc. related to sleep aid, and the Report page outputs the user's sleep situation.
Watch is only used for cell phone sleep information and uploads sleep information to the App. At the same time, the App also synchronizes the cell phone information and corrects the information collected by Watch (with Watch data as the main focus).
The Speaker can be used for noise reduction of sounds that affect the user's sleep. Users can also choose whether or not to turn on the aromatherapy mode while sleeping.
Low—Fidelity Model
Mood Board
Evaluate the solution
Usability Test
I invited 8 urban young people from Generation Z as my test participants to conduct a paper prototype test. Before the test, I planned a Pre-test questions outline and set three scenario tasks, which included activities before sleep, during sleep, and after waking up. After the test was completed, I conducted a post-test interview, asking questions including "What are the 2-3 points that need the most improvement?"
Research Questions
Based on these three research questions, I conducted...
User Testing
Improvement Direction
A/B Test
Improvement:
People should be able to freely choose different pre-sleep activities as part of their bedtime routine.
After finishing the pre-sleep preparations, the user should set the wake-up time before proceeding to lock the phone. There should also be an option to select a default wake-up time during this setup.
During sleep, the pause button in the app should not respond to a simple tap but rather require a long press. This would prevent accidental touches that could lead to navigating to the next page unintentionally.
……
I conducted A/B testing to refine the presentation of data and the hierarchy of information on the pages, with a particular focus on the design of the report page to determine which version is more engaging and user-friendly for the audience.
“What's the division of "low, medium and high" in version A? I can't see how it works.”
“I prefer the line graph in Version B as it's larger and easier to view."
"The data presentation order in Version B seems more intuitive to me. I like being able to immediately see how long I slept today and get insights into the quality of my sleep.”
"I think version A's date placement makes more sense and is easier for me to manipulate."
……
75%
of testers prefer version B
Deliver the design
Homepage
Sleep Process
Report Page
B=M+A+P
M: Want a quality sleep.
A: Provide user-friendly and good bedtime habits and music therapy (bedtime preparation is in line with contemporary young people's pursuit of "ritual").
P: Split up each bedtime preparation, and guide the user to operate it through timed reminders and some mandatory actions. After asking the user to charge the cell phone and put it on the table, start the sleep status monitoring, and play the music set by the user at the same time.
B: The user follows the operation, completes the bedtime preparation, puts down the cell phone, and enters the sleep state.
Utilize various types of quantitative data to provide an intuitive display of the user's sleep conditions, and create visual charts. This approach facilitates a better understanding for users regarding their sleep qualities over different times.
Utilizing vivid color contrasts to depict the monthly sleep quality of users provides a striking visual effect, simplifies the interpretation of complex data, and enhances comparative analysis.
Successful Evaluation Test
I invited 10 target users to participate in the test ......
80%
Would use Slep App to solve the problem of insomnia and improve the quality of sleep.
Next Steps
Hi-Fidelity Display
60%
Liked the feature to correct bad sleep habits and found it interesting and useful.
70%
Think Slep App can help correct the bad habit of playing mobile phones before bed.
Complete the design of relevant Watch plugins.
Complete the design and modelling of smart speakers.
Coming soon ......