Team: Seema Bansal, Robert Halvorsen, David Lin
Client: Philips
Research Methods: Co-Design, Role Play, Secondary Research, Competitor Analysis, Survey, Interviews
Roles: User Research, Visual Design, UX Design
Duration: 4 weeks
Droopy is an ultimate sleep product for teenagers in the US, developed by me, Robert and Seema for Philips Design Challenge. The one-month project consists of 2-week user research, 2-week of idea generation, iteration, and mock-testing. The project won the 1st place of the challenge. Here is a detailed media coverage of the winning project: https://www.cmu.edu/iii/about/news/2018/philips-design-challenge.html
The Challenge
The focus of this design challenge was to create a sleep product for teenagers in the US.
The Process and Contribution
The team first conducted market research and user research to uncover data and insights and then iterated the design with potential users. The final deliverables were a 3D rendering of Droopy and high fidelity visual illustrating the features, user journey and product lifecycle of the concept.
I am the visual design and user research lead of this project. I worked with the team members to use a mix of secondary research, product benchmarking, interviews, and online survey to conduct user research. And I designed all the 2D visual deliverables in Adobe Illustrator.
final rendering of Droopy 
the winning squad ; )
User Research and Market Research
The 2-week user research includes literature review of scholarly articles on sleep patterns and teenager sleep, product benchmarking on current sleep products, online surveys, 10 face-to-face interviews with teenagers and their parents, and analysis of third-party data.
analysis of user research result on the whiteboard
Here are the four key insights from the research:
Based on the the difference in teenagers’ attitude towards sleep, we categorized teenagers into 4 groups – the Chill, the Learner, the Restless, and the Struggle:
We decided not to focus on the Struggle and the Chill because they do not have an urgent need for sleep product, and decided to focus on the Learner and the Restless, who might struggle to sleep and are curious to learn more about their sleep patterns.
Concept Development and Iteration
We then developed the basic ideas based on the key insights and the sleep cycle we identified. The gamification feature caters to teenagers’ love for games and competition. The silent sleep tracking and wake-up light intend to use the existing technology to minimize the distraction for teenagers and save costs for R&D：
We then completed two rounds of iterations focusing on the appearance of Droopy, the features and the user journey. During the user journey testing, we role played the teenagers to figure out the interaction flow of the product and the conversation flow for voice UI:
we used the illustrations on post-its to quickly ask teenagers for their preferences, the round shape on the right hand side is the winner.
we iterated on the the user journey and potential interactions by role playing the teenagers
Introducing Droopy
Finally, we developed Droopy,:
An all-inclusive low-cost sleep solution designed specifically tailored for teenagers. It offers a one-stop sleep solution for teenagers with a minimal user interface that develops a long-lasting relationship between user and product.
Droopy’s 5 Features
The final features cover the sleep cycle of the teenagers. They follow the principle of minimizing the distractions from user interactions while helping teenagers sleep well and empowering them to understand and improve their sleep.
Major features of Droopy:
For example, Voice UI could minimize the screen time teenagers normally spend. Sleep and Wake Up light could minimize the teenagers’ interactions with a normal alarm. And the Gamified User Experience could help the teenagers understand their sleep pattern and empower them to improve their sleep.
User Journey
An explanation of how a teenager interacts with Droopy using Voice UI. It shows how Robert, a 15-year-old teenager, sets up the alarm, chooses a sleep story to help him sleep, waken up by the sleep light in the morning, and presented with his sleep data:
Product Life Cycle
Droopy, which has a sustainable life cycle, intends to maintain a long-lasting relationship with its target customers. We also offered material recommendation to Philips to support a sustainable product life cycle because Philips also aims to minimize wastes and environmental footprint for its products:
droopy’s product life cycle scenario
droopy’s dimensions, potential materials, and major technology features etc.
Feedback and Potential Impact
Me and my group won the 1st place out of 12 submissions for the Philips Design Challenge. Our team was reached out by Philips R&D team during the post-evaluation process. Unfortunately, we are not involved in the actual product development process.
JUNCHAO (DAVID) LIN 