Objective
To design a physical product that addresses any issue in everyday life, with technological intervention.
Process
The area I had taken up was something very close to me, Sleep.
Sleep can be split roughly into 3 stages -
1. Getting into bed.
2. Going to sleep.
3. Waking up.
There are products which take care of the last two stages, but there is no product that helps a person get into bed.
Target Audience
The user group I was looking at was people who want to sleep early, but do not because they end up using their digital devices, not keeping an eye on the time. And they realise that it is late only when they get physically exhausted. And then, there are children.
With children, it is a little different because in their case, it is the parents who want them to sleep at a specified time. The children are addicted to their devices and this in turn makes them sleep late.
Opportunity
The opportunity here is to design a product that helps the said user to get into bed.
Pomodoro & Habits
The Pomodoro is a Habit-Forming Device which I use regularly. I realised that getting into bed would also be a habit that needed time.
Existing Scenario
Design Possibilities
The device could:
1. be friendly
2. be easy to use
3. be based on human wiring (natural interactions)
4. be directly interacted with, instead of through a mobile application. This will make it remain in the mind of the user.
5. be animated, maybe?
6. have sound and/or motion for feedback
7. get hyper with time (change level of feedback)
8. not be irritating (should)
9. have character
Design Essentials
With the device, the user will get notified of when he is supposed to be in bed. Initially, the user might not care, or work around it, but over time, he will develop the habit of paying attention to it and getting into bed.
Design Directions
Animal studies suggest that being a morning person or an evening person may be built into our genes, like having red hair or blue eyes. This may explain why those of us who are early-to-bed, early-to-rise types, or late-to-bed, late-to-rise types, find it so hard to change our behavior.
If you like to linger over your coffee to read the morning paper, you're probably more of a lark. If you do laundry or surf the Internet at midnight, you're probably an owl. If you occasionally get up at dawn to go fishing, and sometimes stay up long past your usual bedtime at parties, you're a happy hummingbird.
The owl was chosen because the device tries to change the habits of the night owls, with an owl (friend).
Explorations
Scenario with Oolo