Shut Eye

By Kyle McNaught

Sleep deprivation is unfortunately a very real issue for many people, and especially college students. Due trying to meet close deadlines and cramping for exams, while also trying to have a social life, is causing students to lose precious hours that could be spent sleeping. This lack of sleep in college students results in struggling to focus and laps in memory, which makes all the late night studying pointless. That’s also ignoring the other negative health risks that come from sleep deprivation. A smartphone application that builds its users schedules would be extremely useful. Users could input their class times and the app would create an optimal schedule for when to work and when to sleep.

The target audience for the Shut Eye app is college students (ages 17-24) who lack a healthy sleep schedule.

I collected data using Google Surveys and found information that would help in the production of Shut Eye. Through this information I was able to determine what I needed to focus on as the most important aspects for Shut Eye. One early feature that I planned but cut due to the data that I collected, was a feature to allow users to upload relaxing music from iTunes and Google Music. I also could see that getting a healthy sleep schedule is important and there are people who be willing to use an app to improve their sleep schedule. The full survey results can be found here.

Topic 1. Identify sleep patterns

• Q1: How would you describe your current sleeping habits?

• Q2: About how much of your time, when you are awake, is spent on doing work?

  • Does it interfere with time that would normally be spent sleeping?

• Q3: Around what time do you normally fall asleep?

• Q4: Do you often take naps during the day?

• Q5: How would you describe the way you feel upon waking up in the morning?

  • Does that feeling linger throughout the day?

Topic 2. Understanding schedules

• Q1: How would you describe your current sleep schedule?

• Q2: How well do you feel you have been able to balance your time to get your work done and get a healthy amount of sleep?

• Q3: How does the idea of someone else building a schedule for your daily activities make you feel?

• Q4: Do you often stay on schedule when it comes to getting work done and sleeping?

• Q5: Do you feel any level of stress from your current work?

  • If yes, has this impacted your sleep schedule?

Topic 3. Applying Technology

• Q1: Do you have any sort of techniques that seem to help you fall asleep at night?

  • Do any of these activities involve using a smart device or other type of technology?

• Q2: Do you currently use some kind of digital planner or scheduling app to keep track of when you need to attend certain events (class, meetings, etc.)?

  • If yes, do you/would you use it to keep track of when to sleep as well?

  • If not, would you consider using one.

• Q3: Do you rely on an alarm of some sort to wake you up in the morning or are you able to wake yourself up?

• Q4: Do you find keeping track of your schedule has an impact on your level of stress?

• Q5: Does an app made to help you sleep sound interesting to you?

Responses

High Fidelity Prototype