Towards a Digital Sleep Diary Standard

A sleep diary is an important tool to gather subjective sleep data, which provides key information for the diagnosis of a variety of sleep disorders. In 2012, an expert panel created a standardized sleep diary in pen-and-paper format. However, pen-and-paper has certain limitations, in particular, it is difficult to monitor participant compliance and memory bias. We improve upon these limitations with a digital design and identify benefits and drawbacks of the pen-and-paper format in comparison to a digital sleep diary in an empirical study based on an action design research project. The main contribution consists of five design guidelines: i) use the native environment, ii) utilize established input methods, iii) embed customization to minimize participant workload, iv) evaluate the application continuously using analytics, and v) integrate digital elements to increase compliance. Furthermore, we propose a mobile application design for a digital sleep diary that is in accordance with these guidelines

Design and development of the SleepWell app and comparison to analog sleep diaries

Issues relating to sleep are prevalent worldwide, but few successful attempts have been made in designing and developing mobile applications for sleep assessment. This thesis introduces the design and development of the SleepWell app, a digital sleep diary and sleep deprivation measurement app. The thesis also introduces a mixed-method research study based on action design research where 17 subjects were asked to compare a paper version of Consensus Sleep Diary (CSD-E) to the SleepWell version of CSD-E over a period of two weeks. Also introduced is a second, concurrent study that was performed where 15 subjects used only the digital version for a week. Data was gathered through interviews, surveys, and analytics for app usage. Overall the SleepWell app was regarded positively with almost all participants preferring the digital sleep diary to paper sleep diaries. The app mostly met or exceeded expectations of user experience. Some problems were found, and various improvements need to be made to the app. From this study, five guidelines for designing self-reporting and self-monitoring apps were derived. We propose that in the future, the SleepWell app, if clinically validated, replace paper sleep diaries as a standard tool of sleep assessment.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 965417