Dreambuilder

This is a project I created during my UX bootcamp. Dreambuilder empowers users to build and maintain healthy night and morning routines and habits. This, in turn, helps them develop a well-structured sleep schedule for improved sleep quality.

RESPONSIBILITIES
‍User research, Information architecture, Visual design, Prototyping, User testing

The problem

People don’t sleep enough

According to the Philips Global Sleep Survey in 2019, 62% of adults worldwide report not sleeping as well as they would like. This issue affects many people across the globe, resulting in a lack of energy necessary to carry out daily activities.

My role

As the sole designer on this project, I was responsible for user research, design, prototyping, and usability testing.

This is my journey in search of ways to help people, including myself, with sleep deprivation to sleep better and gain the energy we need for the next day.

_____ SECONDARY RESEARCH

Scientific study on sleep

Before conducting any primary research, I conducted secondary research to gain a broad understanding of the scientific facts related to sleep studies. This allowed me to understand what research had been done and to find new insights in my later process. Additionally, it helped me to ask more relevant questions in my user interviews.

_____ COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Understanding the competition

Sleep deprivation is a common problem that several competitors in the market have attempted to address. Conducting a heuristic analysis of these products can help me understand what is working and what can be improved.

_____ USER RESEARCH

Understanding the users

Recruiting the users

Screener survey helps me find the potential users I need for the user interviews, also some extra questions can provide me more insights

The secondary research helps me to tailor the survey, asking more relevant questions. The total number of respondents was 21, and I recruited 5 people for the user interviews.

Diary study

I asked one of the respondents from the screener survey to document their daily life for 7 days.

During 7 days, he recorded his bedtime and morning routines, stress level, exercise, and diet. My previous research shows that lifestyle habits impact sleep quality. So, I also asked him to record exercise and diet in the questionnaire.

Pictures from the diary study participant

Key results

Over 75%

of respondents have trouble sleeping at least once a week.

Nearly 40%

of respondents feel tired when they wake up and want to sleep more

Around 70%

of respondents go to bed later than they want

Light exercise

helps the participant from diary study sleeps better

User interviews

It's all about asking the right questions

Due to time and location limitations, I conducted the interviews through Zoom. I interviewed five people from the screener survey, and each interview lasted around 30 minutes. To formulate my interview questions, I used the results from my previous secondary research and surveys. In addition to sleep-related questions, I also asked about their lifestyles and knowledge of sleep hygiene.

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Tell me about the last 3 things you do before bed

?

Tell me about the last 3 things you do after waking up

?

What bothers you the most about your sleep?

?

What is a typical workday like for you?

?

Have you ever heard about the concept of sleep hygiene?

?

Tell me about your diet and workout.

?

How do you feel about your current sleep schedule?

?

Have you ever tried any ways to improve your sleep?

_____ SYNTHESIS

Affinity Map and Empathy Map

Looking for the similar theme

The importance lies not in how they sleep, but rather in how they spend their day.

I gathered the notes from the user interviews and grouped similar topics together by using Affinity map, and I was surprised by what I found. All five interviewees mentioned that what they do during the day has a significant impact on their sleep that same night.

Learn more about the users

Sleep less ≠ More time to do tasks during the day

Empathy mapping is another good way for me to organize the pattern from users. It lets me know what people say is not typically what they do.

Persona details

Do more at day, do less at night, then repeat

Insights from my discovery indicated more organized daily activities during the day are essential. I created a persona that will guide me though my design process later. If we truly wanted to make a difference to the lives of people with sleep deprivation, we needed to provide a more holistic solution that considered our users needs relation to:

_____ INSIGHTS

What I learn from the research?

INSIGHT 1

The more productive their day is, the more likely they are to go to sleep on time.

POSSIBLE FEATURE

Checklist can help users to keep on track of them daily habits

INSIGHT 2

Establishing a good night routine can help you get into the "zone" for sleep.

POSSIBLE FEATURE

Users can follow a routine list to help them wind down for the day

INSIGHT 3

They lack knowledge about sleep hygiene, 60% of them never heard about the word.

POSSIBLE FEATURE

Sleep hygiene education section

INSIGHT 4

A positive enforcement and a sense of achievement can make them feel less guilty.

POSSIBLE FEATURE

Users can get a reward when they finish tasks

Sitemap

Before starting any design, I spent some time making sense of structure of the information. This involved a couple rounds of card sorting work. This sitemap also served as the guidance to design user flow.

User flows

Sketches

Sign up

After analyzing the user interviews, the activities and sleep problems are diverse, so I designed an onboarding survey to personalize the experience.

Build up routine

From the user interview, a good routine can help users sleep better

Sleep education

Based on the secondary research and user interview, practicing sleep hygiene can improve sleep quality. But none of the user from interviews practice sleep hygiene regularly.

Wireflow

Once there was no issue with the sketches, I moved on to creating wireframes in Figma:

Styleguide

__USER CASE

Remember Lily?

Follow Lily as she uses Dreambuilder to organize her day and improve her sleep at night.

Sign up

After she downloads the app, she looks at the intro to get to know Dreambuilder.

She uses her email to sign up for an account. During the sign-up process, she is also asked if she wants to allow notifications to receive reminders later. She can choose to set this up later in her journey if she prefers.

Personalized experience

Right after signing up, the app prompts the user to answer a couple of questions about her sleep habits. After answering, she is presented with a few options to add to her routine. She selects a couple that interest her and continues on.

Add yoga to her routine

The user opens the app and is presented with the options she selected during onboarding. She swipes the screen to view them.

She gets an notification from Dreambuilder at 7am in the morning, then she opens the app to look at the morning routine she wants to follow. She crosses the ones that she finishes.

She also wants to incorporate yoga into her nightly routine a few days a week. To do so, she scrolls to the bottom of the app and clicks on "add to night routine" to add yoga.

Learn about sleep hygiene

Lily checks if her diet affects her sleep quality. She selects the "Eat" tab from the organized information tabs after clicking the "Learn" button in the bottom navigation. She reads an article about coffee, and discovers that drinking it late in the day causes her to have trouble sleeping at night. Then she adds no coffee reminder to her daily habit.

Measuring success

What I did well

"I really need this!"
"This can actually help me wind down for the day."

I conducted two rounds of usability testing using the prototype and received a lot of positive feedback.

Sleeping hours increased 0.8 hours a day in average.
Sleep time starts 0.4 hours earlier than before using the app.

I also asked the previous diary study percipient did another one. He recorded the same content as last time, and we all see improvements.

What I would do differently

If there's a feature that can help the users have a sense of accomplishment during the day, that would be a huge bonus for this product.

During the 2 months I was working on this project, I only focus on the MVPs that helps users build up healthy routines. Move forward, I would love to add a feature that gives user more positive feedback when they finished their routine.

Dreambuilder

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