Event Design
YUME Booth Design
YUME is your everyday companion that’s nurtured through your sleeping habits. This pop-up introduces you to YUME, from how it could improve your sleep hygiene to creating your own YUME to raise.
With
Fei Chuang, Chori Jun, Julieta Montealegre
Role
Booth Designer
Duration
4 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Mock-ups
Overview
Nurturing positive sleep habits
This popup was an extension of YUME, a tamagotchi inspired sleep-app. The app was inspired by the realization that sometimes we take better care of our in-game pets than ourselves. As we dug into the gamification behind raising a tamagotchi, we became interested in seeing how we can apply the same mechanism to foster a positive habit– sleep.
My Role
Bringing YUME’s mission to life
After serving as the UX designer for this project, I was thought about how I can bring the app experience to real life through a pop up booth. Because our YUME app focuses on positive reinforcement in creating a new habit, I wanted to create a space that reflects that cozy and inviting atmosphere.
Fostering a positive relationship
with sleep
YUME is a virtual pet that lives on your phone or computer who eats and gains energy from your dreams. It has been designed to look friendly but mischievous, and is easy to grow attached to. Keep up with your sleep goals and YUME will thrive. If you ignore YUME and stay up too late, it becomes starved and tired. Keep yourself and YUME healthy by keeping your sleep on track.
App Overview
Goals
Considering how to encourage adolescents to build healthy habits
Positive Reinforcement
Adolescents and young adults express internal shame when they could not keep up with their sleep goals.
To balance that, YUME focuses on creating positive reinforcement to celebrate and reward when people do hit their sleep goals.
Creating Care
Relating through an expressive character
We wanted for people to be able to relate to YUME and learn to take care of it like they take care of themselves and vice versa. Fei led the creation of YUME and all its designs.
Creating Endearment
An easily accessible homescreen widget
Given how often young adults use their phone, we designed a widget to be on the home screen so that while you’re scrolling you’re also being reminded about your health goals.
Creating Attachment
Personalize your YUME to reflect you
As you interact with your YUME and hit your sleep and health goals, you’re able to unlock more accessories to really make your YUME your own. As you unlock more, you’re also able to see how your friends are suiting up their YUMEs.
Creating Time
Creating Endearment
Tamagotchi’s convinced users to willingly dedicate their time, attention, and emotions to the virtual pet.
Raising something gives adolescents a sense of responsibility. By channeling this nurturing energy adolescents also learn how to take care of themselves.
Subtly helping you find the time of day
While we live in spaces that are artificially lit, and being constantly surrounded by entertainment, it’s sometimes easy to forget the time of day. Inspired by Apple’s night shift, we also created three different indications for the time of day.
Cue-Based Plan
Research has shown adding a cue to your plan helps you remember when to act.
YUME is a friendly presence on your phone, acting as a digital reminder to adolescents take care of it by winding down for the night.
By caring for YUME, users are reminded to care for themselves, transforming sleep habits into a shared and rewarding experience.
an interactive booth experience
The most important part of the booth experience is to share with people what we created, and intrinsically create a sense of attachment between the potential user and YUME. I wanted the booth to feel cozy and approachable to people, and give people a space to rest in the middle of the chaotic booth experience.
Experience Overview
Process
Developing an experience fitting on a picnic table
Interaction
Personalize your YUME to reflect you
To help create a sense of companionship with YUME’s, we wanted people to be able to dress them up as if they were really their own pets. This is a collection of YUME’s born on the pop up booth day.
Beyond just what we physically wanted to show, we also had to consider factors like where people would be standing, where the YUME interactions would take place, and where the person-to-person interaction would occur.
Empathetic Connection
Create an environment where people can take ownership over their YUMEs.
Considering the best way to leverage an in-person experience, we wanted to create a space for people to physically interact with YUME.
Cozy Environment
Construct a space of relaxation that invites people in to learn more.
In the midst of a busy science-fair style space, we wanted the space to physically reflect the vibe of YUME. We also wanted our booth to be a space people wanted to come to, whether to relax amidst the hustle and bustle, or to interact with the YUMEs.
Understand the “Why”
Beyond outlining the scope of the problem, delving into the research of why we believe YUME is the best solution.
Many people in attendance are already intimately familiar with the consequences of sleep. Rather than focusing on that, we wanted to show how YUME works.
Goals
Connecting users to their YUMEs
Final Reflections
Something will always change
You can plan as much as you want, but something will always change by the time you get to the venue. This time what I overlooked was the location of the power plugs, meaning wires were crossing in locations where I’d rather keep them hidden. You always have to be ready to make some adjustments on the fly.
Acknowledgements
Measure things out, demo it out
This was my first time designing for a booth, so I was focusing my energy on gathering objects I wanted for the booth. What I didn’t realize when I put things together was that some things were bigger than I expected, and some things were smaller.
Some people come just for the cite factor
A lot of people came by our booth just to play with YUME rather than interact with our prototype. While I don’t think this was a loss for this booth, balancing where we want the attention to be is definitely something I want to keep in mind for the future.
To better sleep, to more laughs, and to the wonderful team
This was one of the first times where I worked in a team with very defined roles. We were all in design, but this was our first semester in our designated tracks, so it was really exciting to see this all come together.
To Fei: Thank you for creating the cutest character. Just seeing the YUME you brought to life made me so excited to work.
To Chori: Your illustrations are you adorable, you managed to create the cute and wonderful world around YUME so well. Thank you for designing the wireframes with me, it really made developing the UI for YUME quicker and easier.
To Julieta: Thank you for delving into the research, and helping to set up the problem space for this project.