Collaborations

As part of my experience testing which includes multi-sensory, music is an important element. Based on the findings from Design testing, I have decided to proceed with the music (but without the sleepy app). This music should compliment the light effects and synchronise with the pulsing.

I got in contact with Ye Min a month ago, a local sound designer introduced by my friend who is working in the film industry. I shared my concept and ideas with him and provided some music examples that have been scientifically proven to help anxiety, such as Weightless by Marconi Union. The reason why I'm not using this song is because it does not synchronise with the pulsing. 

Ye Min is interested to collaborate with me and proposed to work on several versions, including experimental music such as songs by in love with a ghost, which I really liked as well since I'm a big fan of post-rock / ambient music, but I'm not so sure if it is suitable for sleep so we will have to explore. I quite like the 'rain drops' music at the starting of this song 'flowers feat.nori'. We are looking to include rain drop effects in the music as it will compliment the ripple effects experience.


Recently, he got back with me with 2 options, the 1st one focuses on water stream while the other one is more on raindrops. I have also shared the 2 music tracks with Nur. I told Ye Min that the current 2 tracks are pretty good and I feel that for sleep, the music don't have to be too fancy or experimental so  we won't be working on more tracks, we are now focusing to adjust the music to the pulsing effect. I will share more once the music track is ready.

I also had my formative feedback with Nur, Harah and Andreas on 25th Feb and they advised me to slow down. I have to look back at my research objectives to re-focus again as I have been concentrating on the makings.

After taking some time to look back at my research objectives, I proceeded to arrange the 1st experience testing with the 8 participants. Once we fine-tune the music to match the pulsing effect, we can proceed with the testing, which is scheduled on 3rd March. 

I am also in touch with Ricco (Dr. Richard Swinbourne). He will be supporting me as I carry out my sleep testings scientifically to quantify the data with 2-3 participants. He will be programming 2 research grade sleep watches Fatigue Science, Actigraphy and lend them to me for the testing. He also provided me with a sleep diary template to record the data. He recommended a testing methodology that includes collecting baseline data (2-3 days) and suggested that I run the intervention testing for a minimum of 4 nights with a few people. I will work out the timeline for the participants (2-3) and their sleep testings after the 1st experience testing with the main focus group. 

I have told Harah and Nur honestly that the results will be considered inconclusive as sleep experiments usually take longer and participants should be a lot more. But I will still go ahead with the sleep experiment and take on the proper sleep testing methodology advised by Ricco as a pilot study as I am curious to see the results from the testings.