Insomnia App Sleep Guru Wins Bronze for Best Mobile App

Above Image: (L–R) Mavis Dixon, Shauna Gammon, Darryl Pogue (behind), Ellena Lawrence, Ricard Adrianza, Ian Suda
Missing: Fay-Lisa Jensen, David Thomas

Ayogo Shares Award with Merck

The insomnia support application Sleep Guru was created by Ayogo as a companion support to Merck’s Belsomra medication. Sleep Guru won bronze for Best Mobile App at the DTC National Advertising Awards in Boston.
“Sleep Guru is a beautiful app that pulls together a curriculum of sleep hygiene in a super playful experience. The goal of the app is to complete a 10 Day Challenge. The purpose of the project is to help people with insomnia form new sleep habits. The player picks their own custom challenge to work on, choosing five daily habits they want to tackle every day for 10 days. There’s really nothing else like it out there,” said Mavis Dixon, project manager for the project.
The app has as its central image a screen that lists the daily habits in a swipe-able To Do list. The curriculum of habit change was designed in consultation with clinicians and based on evidence. The list rests on a set of four ukulele strings that strum when the To Do item is swiped away. The strings work as a loss aversion mechanic, breaking one by one if the user fails to do their daily check in, but easily restored when they pick up their game again.

Sleep Guru’s Loss Aversion Mechanic Keep Users Returning

Sleep Guru Designed by Experts

Ayogo’s Sleep Guru’s team included Shauna Gammon, as lead user experience designer; Ricard Adrianza, creative director, sound designer and visual designer; Ian Suda as lead software developer; Darryl Pogue as backend developer; Ellena Lawrence as UX designer and MLR submission lead; Fay-Lisa Jensen as Front End developer; David Thomas, Quality Assurance and Mavis Dixon as writer and project manager.  The gamified application employs many of the Playful Design ideas and principals in Ayogo’s eBook on Playful Design.

Try Sleep Guru for yourself and let us know what you think.