SoundGlass [Process]

A time-tracking and sleep-aiding device that helps its users to change their sleeping habits gradually.

Brainstorm

As a CMU student studying design, I am surrounded by students that have less-than-ideal sleep patterns. I have seen people about the same age as mine constantly sleeping for 5 hours at night, or sleeping at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Background Research

According to researches done by Australian Sleep Health Foundation, about 33 to 45% of adults sleep poorly or not long enough. If you sleep less than six hours per night and have disturbed sleep you stand a 48 percent greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15 percent greater chance of developing or dying of a stroke.

Existing Solutions...

User Research

To better understand my end user's needs, I developed this questionnaire to get a quick understanding of the problem space. I got a total of 40 responses and therefore I did these graphs to analyze my data.

Persona

The Idea

According to research & my insights, a mild physical reminder could be ideal to help the situation. Everyday when the user decided that they are ready to change their sleep pattern, they could activate the reminder in some certain way. And the device, thereafter, would use different colors of light to indicate the time left before the set bedtime. When the time is up, the device would then play soothing songs to make the user feel sleep, and won't turn off until there's no light detected in the surrounding area for 10 minutes.

Branding

I chose HoMedics as the proposed brand for this product because of its SoundSpa product line. The use of light and sound and the intended size of my product fits my product well into the collection. Analyzing the SoundSpa collection helps me to better understand their form language and aesthetic choices, which helps me to choose the color and material for my product.