Designing a sleep aid for rail commuters, please help me
 

Hello everyone,

I am a product design student in university. I am designing a product for my final year project, to help commuters to sleep on train.

The product is multi-functional. Currently, I am not sure how exactly the product will look like, but it will be very small and portable, and powered by normal batteries. So rail commuters can carry it in their bags

It will include:
A timer to wake you up at your station,
An anti-theft function to watch your bag,
And some other functions.

All alarm and reminder will be vibration of the product.

So here I need your experience and views on the “some other functions”. Below, I listed several questions, please answer them by Yes, No or Doesn’t matter. It will be a great help for me, thank you very much!

1. Are you a rail commuter? No matter you are or not, your views will be equally important for me.

2.Do you worry about putting your head on the next passenger’s shoulder, when you fall in sleep on a train?

If yes, would you like a remainder to wake you up, when you are moving towards other passengers by vibration?

3. Do you want a cushion to support your head, if there is no such feature on the train seats?

4. Do you worry about snoring on train, if you snore in sleep? (Sorry about the mean assumption)

If yes, would you like a remainder to wake you up, when you are starting snoring?

5. Do you want other people to see your face, when you are sleeping on train?

6. Do you want to reduce the noise level, when you sleep on train?

Thank you very much again for your help.

Hello Pillow:- Ah, sleep and trains two of my favourite passtimes!
In reply to your survey:-

1. I am not a rail commuter, but have been in the past.

2. To be honest, No. The chance to sleep would have been a fine thing :D
99% of the time my problem was not getting a seat at all. However, I used to travel London-Newcastle a lot and a Snooze-o-matic would have been useful then, but not on East Croydon-Victoria.

3. I have used blow-up neck-cushions before - but they really could be improved for better comfort.

4. Yes I snore and No, I dont care in the slightest.:p

5. No preference

6. Yes very much, and dont forget a way to reduce light levels with the good old blindfold.

Can I suggest that your high-tech USP would actually be to link the Snooze-o-matic into a GPS so that it would wake you before you arrived at your station regardless of what delay you set the timer to. That is the greatest worry about falling asleep on a train. I think mobile phones are now beginning to carry GPS, so you could run this off your mobile, and not need a Garmin or Trimble.
PS - If you make a £million from this idea, I want 5% :D :D

On some TOC's you might want the timer to wake the user up on certain dates, eg Christmas Day, users birthday, etc etc. :D

1. Are you a rail commuter? No matter you are or not, your views will be equally important for me. Yes

2.Do you worry about putting your head on the next passenger’s shoulder, when you fall in sleep on a train? No, I stay wake to avoid this

If yes, would you like a remainder to wake you up, when you are moving towards other passengers by vibration? N/A - I Would however be interested to see such a solution.

3. Do you want a cushion to support your head, if there is no such feature on the train seats? The would be nice, though current 'bolt upright' seating prohibits this

4. Do you worry about snoring on train, if you snore in sleep? (Sorry about the mean assumption) See Q.2 Answer.

If yes, would you like a remainder to wake you up, when you are starting snoring? This would be good after a 'heavy night' straight from work.

5. Do you want other people to see your face, when you are sleeping on train? not fussed.

6. Do you want to reduce the noise level, when you sleep on train? Yes. Bose headphones are quite effective

I mean not sound difficult. Hopefull my answers provide, er, answers, and also solutions currently used by a commuter.

I don't think many of we railway "fans" would want to sleep on the train anyway there is too much to see on the way!!:rolleyes: :)