Exploring interaction strategies in the context of sleep

Abstract

This paper highlights opportunities and considerations when developing interaction techniques in the relatively unexplored area of sleep. We do this by first describing the sociological aspects of sleep such as the need for scheduling and coordinating sleep within a collective, followed by a description of the physiological aspects such as the circadian rhythm and sleep stages. We then examine how some external factors like the location of sleep and family settings can affect sleep to highlight potential design opportunities. We finish the paper by describing five distinct themes such as scheduling for a collective, supporting sleep transitions and feigning and inhibiting sleep around which design opportunities are explored. The main contribution of this paper is a discussion on the phenomenon of sleep and its position in the social life to provide a rich understanding of sleep and a set of opportunities for interaction design research around sleep. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.