11/05/22
Client Name: Zisu (Allison)
Define Phase Brainstorming
After thoroughly exploring Allison's problem space of sleeping in the Discovery phase of this project, I set out to organise my findings and narrow it down to one focused problem statement. I first started by brainstorming patterns, surprises/curiosities, contradictions and tensions, as well as listing down the people I met and their sleep-related habits/problems. This brainstorming is captured below:
Next, I brainstormed user stories based on the observed characteristics of the people I interviewed and the problems they were facing with regards to sleep:
Through these brainstorming activities, I began to recognize that my client's main "sub-problem" within the realm of her problem space had to do with falling asleep once in bed. I also discovered that the key factors contributing to this issue were:
Consistency
Consistency with bedtimes, wake up times, naps (frequency, duration, etc.) and pre-bedtime routines
Anxiety
Anxiety surrounding university/assignments, racing thoughts due to stimulating activities/entertainment, etc.
These key factors led to the formation of my first How Might We statements below.
Initial How Might We (HMW) Statements
I started with the following How Might We statement focusing on the impact of anxiety on students' sleep (key phrases are coloured red):
How might we provide a design that can reduce university students' anxieties so that they can get more sleep?
From there, I began to iterate on this statement by changing certain phrases or wordings or by trying a different direction. This iterative process is shown below, where altered words/phrases are coloured red:
How might we provide a design that can reduce university students’ anxieties so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help university students maintain consistent bedtimes so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help overseas students maintain consistent schedules around assignments and bedtimes so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help students relax before bed so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help students reduce screen use before bed so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help students maintain sleep-inducing habits so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help overseas students maintain consistent sleep-supporting habits so that they can get to sleep faster?
How might we provide a design that can help overseas students ease anxieties surrounding school so that they can get to sleep faster and more consistently?
How might we provide a design that can help busy overseas students reduce anxieties surrounding university so that they can consistently get to sleep within 20 minutes of getting in bed?
How might we provide a design that can help anxious overseas students feel more relaxed before bed so that they can consistently get to sleep within 20 minutes?
While iterating on these statements, I began to create a more focused definition of the problem at hand by clearly defining the target audience (iterating from students to anxious overseas students), the positive outcome of the design (from reduce anxieties to feel more relaxed) and a metric of success (from get to sleep faster to get to sleep within 20 minutes). At this stage, I had yet to define what the design itself would look like, but in the context of my client's problem space I decided such a design could be one or more of the following:
Product
Service
Environment
Habits/routine
In order to narrow down what the design itself would entail, I completed the following activities (Mindmapping and AEIOU) while simultaneously completing the above iterations on my How Might We statements.
Mindmapping
My first activity involved creating a mindmap of the key ideas, factors and characteristics relevant to my client's problem space. I chose to focus on the issue of getting to sleep since, based on previous findings from the Discover phase as well as the brainstorming carried out in this phase, this issue seemed to be the most pressing and involved for my client. Through this mindmap, I identified key factors (bedtime routines, anxiety, naps, consistency, screens and other miscellaneous factors) that can impact one's ability to fall asleep. The connections I drew between these ideas made me realise that the main issues of consistency and anxiety I had identified earlier were not necessarily all-encompassing: screen use was another major factor that should be addressed.
AEIOU
The second activity I carried out was filling out an AEIOU table, where:
A stands for Activities
E stands for Environments
I stands for Interactions
O stands for Objects
U stands for Users
Through filling out this table, I realized that the environment my client was interacting with before bed was another key issue that I had not previously addressed. Factors such as her sister crying, the close proximity to her study space, the bright light from her bathroom and the too-soft mattress she had identified in the observation journal were all contributing to an environment that was non-conducive to sleep. Additionally, a design addressing the environment could help account for other miscellaneous factors (such as screen use, a key issue identified through mindmapping) that were affecting my client's ability to sleep. Thus, based on these findings, I altered my HMW statement to focus on the user's sleeping environment through the design.
Final HMW Statement
After completing the mindmap and AEIOU table alongside my problem statement iteration, I developed the final How Might We statement below:
How might we design an environment that can help anxious overseas students feel more relaxed before bed so they can consistently get to sleep within 20 minutes?
Key words/phrases from this statement (in bold) explained:
environment: what the design will look like
anxious overseas students: the target audience of the design
more relaxed: the positive impact of the design
consistently get to sleep within 20 minutes: the metric of success
Positive impact/outcomes & metrics for success explained:
More relaxed before bed:
Involves feeling less stressed about assignments/school
Not thinking about things that need to be done
Brain isn’t overstimulated/excited about things (school, entertainment, etc.)
Getting to sleep faster
Within 20 minutes of getting into bed (quantitative measurement)
Ultimate goal of getting more sleep by reducing time spent awake in bed
The mindmapping and AEIOU activities ultimately helped me settle upon this HMW statement through cementing my focus on reducing anxiety and on an environment more conducive to sleep.
Reflection on Chosen HMW Statement
In the end, I structured my final How Might We statement using phrases that describe the following four main components: the design, the target audience, the positive outcome and the metric of success. By doing so, I have created a problem statement that is both specific enough to encourage a focused design process while also allowing for a broad range of solutions.
For the design component of the problem statement, I chose to focus on the environment —the bedroom — so that I could examine how the user interacts with the room and address key factors such as noise, light (eg. from bathroom and screens), proximity to study space, etc. These factors have connections to others as well (such as proximity to study space being connected to school-induced anxiety) which ultimately allows the design to be more holistic and encompassing. I hope to examine how the environment and the user's interactions with it can be designed to be more relaxing and conducive to sleep in order to address my client's sleeping problems.
For the target audience component of the statement, I decided to specify that anxious overseas students would be the main users of the design. This profile not only fits my client but can also be applied to a broader range of people while still remaining focused enough so the design can be tailored to certain unique needs. For example, overseas students such as Allison have to deal with timezones and differences in household members' schedules and anxious students often face insomnia due to concerns about schoolwork.
For the positive outcome component, I chose to focus on becoming more relaxed. I initially started out with the outcome of reducing anxieties but learned that framing this aspect in a positive light is more effective in helping the design be successful. A design that ensures the client feels moved in a more positive direction (as opposed to a less negative direction) can help that client feel more empowered moving forward in their life in general.
Finally, for the metric of success component, I decided to focus on consistently getting to sleep faster. I used time (falling asleep within 20 minutes of getting in bed) as a quantitative way to measure the design's effectiveness in achieving the desired outcome. It should be noted, however, that this metric might not necessarily address the issue of getting more sleep. For example, if the user gets to sleep faster but ends up going to bed at a later time (or waking up earlier) the design does not actually result in more sleep despite fulfilling the metric for success. Although Allison's problems with sleeping largely concern falling asleep rather than overall quantity or quality, the design should still ensure that its users aren't regularly getting less sleep as a result (hence the consistency component of the statement).
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