A sleep-monitoring toy and app pair that helps the families of children with insomnia get better sleep
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Case study
Class project
5 weeks
Lead product designer on team of 2 researchers and 1 developer
We began by doing research on common problems that children and families face in everyday life. 20-30% of young children have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. Common sleep problems in young children include insomnia, snoring, sleepwalking, sleeptalking, nightmares, and bruxism.
SleepSheep sends real-time updates about your child's sleep status via the Shepherd home screen, allowing you to check in on your child's sleep while getting your own rest
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Shepherd analyzes metrics such as motion and audio to track sleep quality and provide personalized recommendations for getting better sleep
Set customized sleep schedules to help establish consistent bedtime and wake-up routines
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Having trouble sleeping? SleepSheep can guide your child through guided meditation sessions
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We spoke with 2 families with young children (age 7 & 8) to gain a better understanding of sleep routines and common sleep problems. We learned that lack of routine is a signifcant factor in the children’s sleeplessness, and parents expressed desire for a non-intrusive way to monitor their child’s sleep quality throughout the night.
"Sometimes when I watch TV at night I just don;t think about going to sleep when its time for bed"
- 7y/o
"If [child's name] gets up in the middle of the night or stays up super late, it throws off her sleep schedule for a few days afterwards"
- Parent of 7 y/o
"I have to stay up late trying to get him to sleep...it's a lot because I already have so much on my plate"
- Parent of 8 y/o
Based on insights from our competitive analysis and user feedback, we identified these main pain points for our solution to address
Parents don’t want sleep monitoring devices to make their children uncomfortable
It's hard for kids to remember to go to sleep on time, which makes it hard to develop a routine
Inconsistent bedtime and wakeup routines worsen existing sleep problems
We came up with the idea to place sensors in a stuffed animal to create a cuddly companion. This addresses the gap in the market for kid-friendly sleep monitors
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To use time efficiently, we split into 2 groups to sew the sheep and code the sensors separately
Once we had a working sheep, we brainstormed ways the app can enhance the sheep’s functions
To narrow down which features we wanted our app to have, we used a customer journey map to determine user needs at different use stages
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To narrow down which features we wanted our app to have, we used a customer journey map to determine user needs at different use stages
I built key flows using the wireframes and asked users to perform actions using the prototype. I observed their interactions and noted their feedback
This was my first time working on a project with engineers and researchers, not just designers. It was incredibly rewarding to create works-like, looks-like, and feels-like models within the same prototype. In addition, we learned first-hand how to manage scope and troubleshoot in an interdisciplinary environment.
