Sleep is a basic physiological process essential for good health. However, 40 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with sleep disorders, with many more undiagnosed. To help address this problem, we developed an application, ShutEye, which provides a peripheral display on the wall-paper of the user's mobile phone to promote awareness about recommended activities that promote good sleep quality. Based on preferences about the user's desired bed-time and activities' for example - consuming caffeine or performing vigorous exercise - ShutEye displays guidance about when engaging in those activities is likely to affect sleep without requiring any explicit interaction from the user. In this paper, we describe ShutEye and results from a four-week field study with 12 participants. Results indicate that a simple, recommendation-based peripheral display can be a very low-effort but still effective method for improving awareness of healthy sleep habits. We also provide recommendations about designing peripheral displays and extend insights for designing health-based mobile applications.

The bedroom environment can have a significant impact on the quality of a person's sleep. Experts recommend sleeping in a room that is cool, dark, quiet, and free from disruptors to ensure the best quality sleep. However, it is sometimes difficult for a person to assess which factors in the environment may be causing disrupted sleep. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and initial evaluation of a capture and access system, called Lullaby. Lullaby combines temperature, light, and motion sensors, audio and photos, and an off-the-shelf sleep sensor to provide a comprehensive recording of a person's sleep. Lullaby allows users to review graphs and access recordings of factors relating to their sleep quality and environmental conditions to look for trends and potential causes of sleep disruptions. In this paper, we report results of a feasibility study where participants (N=4) used Lullaby in their homes for two weeks. Based on our experiences, we discuss design insights for sleep technologies, capture and access applications, and personal informatics tools.

Getting the right amount of quality sleep is a key aspect of good health, along with a healthy diet and regular exercise. Human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers have recently designed systems to support diet and exercise, but sleep has been relatively under-studied in the HCI community. We conducted a literature review and formative study aimed at uncovering opportunities for computing to support the important area of promoting healthy sleep. We present results from interviews with sleep experts, as well as a survey (N = 230) and interviews with potential users (N = 16) to indicate what people would find practical and useful for sleep. Based on these results, we identify a number of design considerations, challenges, and opportunities for using computing to support healthy sleep behaviors, as well as a design framework for mapping the design space of technologies for sleep.