Tactual relaxation device to enhance the falling asleep experience

Tactual relaxation device to enhance the falling asleep experience

Van Beuzekom, E.M.

Sonneveld, M. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Design Aesthetics

Master of Science Design for Interaction

2010-11-16

In general all adults sleep seven to eight hours per night. In other words: human kind sleeps one third of their lifetime. Until now, there has not found scientific evidence for the function of sleep, but the theory most accepted is that sleep has a restorative function. Sleeplessness can cause serious health problems on the long run. In modern society there is much pressure to achieve, which is the reason why stress gets experienced as an issue more often. Nowadays there is one out of three people who have temporal sleeping problems. The vision of Philips Research is to enhance peoples lifes. Therefore there has been started a sleep enhancement project. Due to touch being closely related with emotional feelings and due to its intimacy, tactual properties are suitable to focus on in the project. The aim is to make the experience of falling asleep more pleasant, through a relaxing interaction with the design. The targetgroup are people between 25 and 45 years, who sometimes cannot manage to fall asleep due to stressful thoughts. The methods being used were mainly ‘Vision in Product design’, combined with contextmapping. End users were closely involved in the project. The analysis is thorough: with a literature study, interviews with several experts, contextmapping and deconstructing related products. The analysis is in this way a solid starting point to argue the design statement: ‘I want to create a predictive intimate experience which makes one enjoying entering a soft flow of letting go and winding down.’ The selected characteristics for the design phase need to be sensitive and understanding. It should behave accordingly. Furthermore, the design should attract attention and then it should feel predictive and loyal so that one could enjoy ones own relaxation transformation. At last the design should fit to the context of the bed. After the ideation, there were three prototypes realized. In this way the concepts could be evaluated, based on tactual experience. The concept which came out best was the cushion which slowly expands and shrinks. The design got further developed and evaluated with end users. Participants experienced it as a pleasant and relaxing feeling, while using the product. It got associated with sleeping with somebody and at the same time people followed the breathing rhythm unconsciously. There can also be concluded that the design vision fits with the cushion. The report concludes with recommendations related to the offered breathing rhythm of the pillow, further design recommendations and advices on upcoming research.

relaxation
sleep
breathing

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:08a9e2c0-9ef6-4436-b027-fc30ac1f7bd2

2012-01-16

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Van Beuzekom, E.M.