driftoff is a mobile app that aims to support young adults in improving their sleep. It is part of a PhD research project led by Dan Archer, a PhD candidate in Public Health at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University.
This project explores how we can make digital tools that support people’s health and wellbeing more engaging, usable, and useful. Through a participatory design process, I have invited users of the app to actively shape its design and functionality.
Another focus of this project is to explore how people use narrated audio such as podcasts, audiobooks, and ‘sleep stories’ to help them fall asleep. While narrated audio as a sleep aid is very popular anecdotally, there is very little research on what people listen to, why they listen, and whether it is helpful.
The driftoff app is the third study in my thesis. It builds on earlier work in which I explored the sleep experiences of university students and the techniques they use to help them sleep, as well as a co-design study in which I invited students to participate in the design process.
The narrated content in this app has been contributed by local voices, including authors, playwrights, and postgraduate students. All authors and narrators are acknowledged on the credits page.
All advice provided in the app has been reviewed by a New Zealand-registered clinical psychologist, a registered medical doctor, and the Te Herenga Waka Ethics Committee. You can read more about the ethics of this project on the ethics page or through the app menu.
This project has been funded by The Health Research Council of New Zealand.