Irregular sleep contributes to disparities in children's health, school, and behavioral outcomes, but parents working non-standard shifts have trouble implementing a rigid bedtime routine.

This product aims to get children to bed on time, especially when parents aren't around. Ultimately, the goal is to create consistency and predictability in children's daily routines—an outcome that relieves parental stress and improves children's health, behaviour, and cognitive development.

Roger is a platform that allows parents (and other role models) to pre-record stories for their children to hear before bed.

Parents record stories via a mobile app and upload their content to Roger's queue. At bedtime, children can listen to the stories by interacting with the product.

When it's time for bed, Roger will calmly sound for a 6-minute window. Simply lift Roger's head to tune in to the story. A light indicates how much time is left until the story starts, giving children a few extra minutes to get ready for bed.

When the light makes a full rotation, the story begins with a pavlovian chime and ritual anecdote about bedtime.

Over the course of the story—about 12 minutes, the light slowly dims. When the story is done, Roger wishes the child goodnight and notifies their parents they've gone to bed.

To understand who I was designing for, I conducted 12 initial phone interviews with single parents of low-income ($20K–$30K/year). I found patterns in users perceptions and tasks and aggregated my findings in the form of a persona.

To better understand the user's context, I created a series of possible scenarios. I then created a storyboard to map out the intended experience and visualize key touch points.

I started by creating user flows and wireframes to capture the application's primary task of recording a story.

I then considered edge scenarios and designed a prioritization system for the content queue. If no content is uploaded before the daily deadline, Roger defaults to the daily cast. Likewise, if multiple recordings are uploaded, the earlier content takes priority.

When a user signs in, they'll be prompted to connect to a WiFi network and begin customizing the device. After entering a child's name, age and wake up time, Roger will calculate the optimal time for bed.

Users can continue reading stories from the library or purchase new ones in the home section. Longer texts will be broken up into chapters, and users can pick up where they left off.

Within the text UI, users can tap on the screen to reveal the record button and tap again to make it disappear. When finished recording, users can replay the text, save it, or publish to selected channels.

Early sketches exploring interaction methods, form exploration using foam and MDF, functional prototype combines mechanical snap fit with conductive ring to complete the circuit.