A tailored and gradual approach to going to sleep and waking up.
OVERVIEW
Bedtime+ is a side project inspired by my personal poor sleep caused by Covid 19 induced anxiety. This project extends the power of the existing iOS Bedtime app to help people pick strategies for easing into and out of sleep. It also boosts the capability to track sleep quality over time to help guide adjustments as needed.
PROBLEM
The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted so many aspects of life, including sleep quality. This project started when I personally found my sleep being negatively impacted by the pandemic. A recent sleep study showed that about 75% of all participants were impacted negatively due to the mental anxiety and stress caused by the Covid 19 lockdowns and isolation (Sleep Medicine Journal, Dec 2020). Resulting in a range of symptoms such as; struggles getting to sleep, waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks, difficulty getting back to sleep, and challenges getting out of bed at regular times in the morning. My sudden change in quality of sleep motivated me to explore solutions that could help.
CURRENT SOLUTIONS
There are many tools and sleep aids available, so I did not want to simply create another solution to add to the noise. Rather I focussed on enhancing an existing tool to better fit the current situation. After exploring solutions for myself I discovered the iOS Bedtime application, which I had never before used or even seen.
PROJECT APPROACH
Understand > Define > Ideate > Prototype > Test > Refine
REFINE
Three screens (analysis, schedule, alerts) were designed to simplify the flow and increase the capabilities of the app to allow for tailored lead ins to going to sleep and waking up.
NEXT STEPS…
This project is still in motion. Next my plans are to create an Adobe XD prototype for some usability testing.
