Somnu is a graduate-level service design project I developed at ArtCenter College of Design, focused on reimagining the at-home sleep study process used to diagnose Sleep Apnea.
Somnu is a graduate-level service design project I developed at ArtCenter College of Design, during my Grad program, focused on reimagining the at-home sleep study process used to diagnose Sleep Apnea. The solution integrated hardware, a mobile app, and a doctor-facing platform to make sleep testing easier for patients, more actionable for physicians, and more efficient for healthcare providers.
By approaching this as a service design challenge, I mapped the full journey across patients, doctors, logistics, and business systems. The result was a holistic ecosystem that reduced setup anxiety, improved data quality, and aligned with a viable business model.
According to National Sleep Foundation, the leading medical cause of poor sleep is sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder in which sleeping repeatedly starts and stops. Untreated Obstructive sleep apnea is costing Americans about $150 Billion a year.
Sleep disorders are widely under-diagnosed due to friction in traditional sleep testing:
Users struggled with setup and compliance, leading to inaccurate data or test abandonment.
How can we get the current population tested for apnea so that they can start getting a better night's sleep?
Patients struggled with setup and compliance - leading to inaccurate data or test abandonment.
Doctors needed trustworthy, structured data - but often spent hours piecing together raw outputs.
Healthcare providers sought lower re-test rates - since repeated tests increased costs and delayed treatment.
We approached Somnu as a service ecosystem, not just a device or an app. The goal was to simplify the complex and fragmented process of sleep testing into a seamless, patient-centered journey while ensuring doctors received accurate, actionable data.
Doctors prescribe the at-home kit, shipped directly to patients with easy-to-assemble parts. This eliminated hospital scheduling bottlenecks and improved patient accessibility.
Patients simply plug in the device, sync with WiFi, and record their sleep at home. Guided onboarding reduced friction and increased compliance.
Patients receive confirmation when their data is securely uploaded. AI determines if further nights of testing are needed, reducing unnecessary steps.
Kits include prepaid return labels, streamlining the process for patients and minimizing delays.
Doctors access synchronized IR, thermal, and audio data directly via the Somnu server. This ensures fast turnaround without manual handoffs.
Proprietary Somnu software supports doctors in reviewing data, adding notes, and flagging irregularities. This workflow improved accuracy and gave doctors better confidence in diagnosis.
The digital user flow includes steps for opening the app, profile setup, camera setup, scanning QR codes, starting the study, progressing through the study, and completing the patient profile.
By looking at the entire ecosystem - from patients and doctors to insurers and logistics - I learned how to design for trust and business sustainability in healthcare.
The most meaningful solutions require understanding not just individual user interactions, but the entire system those users operate within. Every stakeholder's needs must be balanced to create a truly successful service.