UI/UX DESIGN
Iolight is an invention idea that was created for the Inventure Prize, “an interdisciplinary innovation competition open to all undergraduate students and recent graduates of the Georgia Institute of Technology” (inventureprize.gatech.edu). I worked with a fellow student to ideate, research, design, and begin the development of a sleeping mask that makes the process of falling asleep and waking up as efficient and easy as possible.
BACKGROUND
Sleep is the foundation of life and the fuel for innovation and progress; however, only half of Americans get the recommended amount of sleep and this leads to reduced focus, mood, and efficiency. It’s an unending cycle – restlessness, inability to fall asleep at night, grogginess, and laziness in the morning. All of these problems reduce the total amount of time that we sleep.
Before entering the Inventure Prize, we already had an idea, as we both had sleep problems. Personally, I always had trouble waking up, while my teammate, however, always found it difficult to fall asleep. And while being at an institution, as sleep-deprived as Georgia Tech, we were came up with Iolight.
MARKET RESEARCH
The sleep industry is a $20 Billion market, and has exploded exponentially in the past two decades. With the introduction of new forms of technology and lifestyle, the number of sleep disorders and sleeping problems have vastly expanded. This, along with unexceptional competition leaves room for pioneers to bridge these gaps and help the world sleep tight again.
Target Audience
Due to the scope of this project, we decided to target our first prototype at highschool/college students (ages 15-25). But ultimately iolight hopes to help all people who want better sleep habits, including students, workers, people with sleeping disorders, people with mental incapacities, people with depression.
*Sleep Graphic Provided By Vecteezy*
USER RESEARCH
After narrowing our target audience, we were able to more easily test to see if our idea would attract students, particularly the Georgia Tech students on campus. Willing Georgia Tech students were given oral-surveys to gather data on their sleep habits. We asked questions like the following:
- Describe the process of your sleep routine, from the moment you decide to fall asleep to the moment you get up.
- How long does it take you to fall asleep?
- How do you feel waking up in the morning?
- How many hours of sleep do you get every night? Is it enough sleep?
- Do you know if you have any known sleep disorders? If so, what?
“I WANT TO FALL ASLEEP FASTER”
As expected, we were not the only ones that would lay awake at night restless counting the number of hours wasted from not being able to fall asleep.
“I WANT TO WAKE-UP FEELING REFRESHED”
While not surprising, the majority of the users mentioned even after sleeping for hours, they woke up feeling groggy and smashing the snooze button.
“I WANT TO SEE MY SLEEP NUMBERS”
People really enjoy seeing visible progress. When we brought up the idea of being able to see their sleep statistics and see their sleep improve, many users agreed that it was a functionality that would definitely be helpful.
SLEEP RESEARCH
Then began the research for our actual product. Along with extensive web searching, we read through research papers, as well as asked neurologist and sleep experts for additional sleep information. After organizing our research we narrowed down the potential sleep concepts we wanted to implement in our product.
BRAINSTORMING SOLUTIONS
With the research and user in mind, we began coming up with ideas for how we wanted to solve the sleep problem. While we had plenty of ideas (i.e. Sonic Sleep Device placed near the user or Dawn Simulation and White noise device to install in the room), we decided we wanted to try to do something unique from the current sleep device market. We wanted to create a sleep mask that could include all 3 sleep concepts: Dawn Simulation, White Noise Stimulation, and tDCS
USER JOURNEY
And as we were wrapping up our initial research, we mapped out the user journey and kept it in mind throughout the entire design process, particularly to understand what interactions we needed to implement in our product. We wanted to make sure we understood the full user experience from getting ready for bed to waking up in the morning.
DESIGN
Mask Design Sketches
Taking inspiration for previously existing sleeping masks and VR headsets, we began sketching concepts for Iolight. The goal of this process was to come up with as many ideas as possible to later potentially prototype and test the ideas.
During our process of sketching the ideas, we continued to do user research to find out which mask seemed most comfortable to them. We discovered that comfort is quite subjective, as it’s difficult to appease everyone. However, we worked to create a design we felt would accommodate most users, and decided iterate on the design as we developed the product.
App USER FLOW
App Design Sketches
As we are developing the actual mask prototype, we also kept the application that would control the mask in mind.
APP DESIGN MOCKUP
This prototype was created quickly to show the judges a quick idea of what the visual design may look like. The user would interact with the Iolight app to use the Iolight mask.
FUTURE PLANS
Currently, we are still in the process of developing the sleep mask. Our biggest development challenge has been melding together comfort and functionality. And as with any project, fundraising and budget is always on our mind, as developing a product is not cheap!
We are continuing to do additional research and development and hope to be able to provide updates in the coming year!