Sleep better is a mobile app that lets you track your sleep, improve your bedtime habits and wake up better using a smart alarm. It was the first project I worked on when I joined Runtastic.
Runtastic
Sep–Oct 2014, Mar 2015
As dedicated fitness and sleep trackers were increasing in popularity, Runtastic set to the vision of giving the community an app to learn more about their sleep patterns without the need of a device other than their phone. To build Sleep Better, the team perfected sleep algorithms working together with a sleep lab and gaining insights from sleep specialists.
When I joined Runtastic, in September 2014, the launch of Sleep Better was due in two months, but the Android design was far behind the iOS design, with many cross-platform decisions still to be made.
I took the responsibility of designing most of the Android screens of the app, also taking part in cross-platform discussions. Working close with the three other designers in the team, developers and the project manager was an effective way to get me up to speed quickly in the new company. Five months later, in March 2015, I was the main designer responsible for Sleep Better for iPad and Android tablets.
A great effort was put into aligning the two platforms (iOS and Android) as much as possible while making the experience feel native to both. Sleep Better for Android was the first Runtastic app designed following Google’s Material Design guidelines, which were extensive but still immature, and kept on changing quite often. As a result of this, we quickly had to find new solutions and adapt our designs.
For the design of the tablet versions, 5 months later, I had less time pressure. It was very interesting to get to design for different screen sizes and get some hands-on experience with iOS after working on the Android app.
Sleep Better is Runtastic’s most successful launch to date, with many downloads in the first week and huge featurings in the app stores and media coverage. The quality and speed of my work were really appreciated by the team and were very important for a timely launch of the app.
While a lot of effort was put into internal testing for the usability of the app as well as for the tracking algorithm, I would have liked to have gathered more user insights about the needs this app solves and possible pain points. For the following projects, such as Runtastic Libra we made sure to invest more time into user interviews and testing.