Slumberly
Service & Experience Design, Social Innovation Design
2024
Lead Designer
Overview
Type 2 diabetes is often treated as an individual health issue, but in reality, it is deeply embedded in systemic factors—work culture, stress, food habits, and, critically, sleep. Despite growing evidence linking poor sleep to insulin resistance and metabolic disorders, sleep remains an overlooked factor in diabetes prevention. Many healthcare interventions focus on medications and lifestyle recommendations but fail to address the environmental and behavioral barriers preventing sustained change.
With Slumberly, I sought to bridge this gap. My goal was to design an intervention that moves beyond surface-level solutions and instead integrates personal habit-building with environmental design. By creating a Residency Program + Home Consultation Service, Slumberly provides structured, hands-on support to help individuals understand, experience, and sustain better sleep practices—ultimately improving their long-term health.
Process
I began with a systems thinking approach to uncover the deeper, systemic factors contributing to Type 2 diabetes. Instead of focusing on individual behaviors, I examined how societal structures, cultural norms, and environmental conditions reinforce unhealthy patterns, particularly in relation to sleep. This broader perspective helped me recognize that addressing diabetes requires more than just prescribing lifestyle changes—it demands reconfiguring the environments and systems that shape daily habits.
Next, I conducted a case study of Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Centre, a hospital actively working on diabetes prevention and management. While the hospital provided medical interventions and lifestyle recommendations, I noticed a gap: patients were advised on changes but lacked support in implementing them sustainably. Sleep, a critical yet often overlooked factor, was not being systematically addressed, despite its strong link to diabetes risk.
Building on these insights, I developed Slumberly, a solution that integrates sleep health into diabetes prevention through an immersive Residency Program and Home Consultation Service. My approach emphasized the alignment of internal habits and external environments, ensuring that individuals received both behavioral guidance and physical space optimization for better sleep.
Feedback
Excellent job on this, and nice to see it come to life through the previous projects until now. This is thoroughly done with ample detail and research. Your presentation is attractively designed and compelling. The prototypes are creatively and well done. Your discussion of threats is very astute. Since Slumberly is housed within a larger diabetes clinic, you could discuss a bit more about how this innovation might be folded into other diabetes care best practices within the clinic.
Learnings
This project pushed me to think beyond individual behavior change and consider how design can influence systemic health outcomes. Diabetes is not just a medical condition but a product of intertwined social, environmental, and behavioral factors.
And there exists intervention gaps even in well-established healthcare institutions. While hospitals offer valuable medical expertise, long-term behavior change requires embedded, real-world support.
And the most important learning was that designing for habit change requires considering both the individual and their environment. Sustainable change happens when behavioral shifts are reinforced by tangible, supportive surroundings.