Designing Soja
A clearer plan after a late night.
Context
I tried Timeshifter while preparing for a flight to New York. It gave me a way to think about jet lag and made me wonder whether a similar plan could help after other disruptions to sleep.
Problem and scope
After staying up late to study, I’d sleep whenever I could and hope to get back to normal. The hard part was deciding what to do over the next few days: when to sleep, wake up, nap, have caffeine, or work out.
I considered jet lag, all-nighters, and late nights out. I started with studying because I knew that situation firsthand and could work through one recovery plan in detail.
I wanted the plan to fit into an ordinary day. It needed to show when to do something and what was coming next, especially when I was already tired and had little patience for another schedule to manage.
Exploration
I designed Soja in Figma and looked at Supersleep as a reference. I tried a full daily schedule, a dashboard with smaller cards, and different questions for setting up the plan.
The schedule put the whole day in one place. The card layout gave individual actions more room, but it still left me deciding how much to show at once. In the setup prototype I worked through what the app needed to ask, including what disrupted my sleep and when I fell asleep and woke up.
I expected the interface to be straightforward. It took several passes on type, spacing, and navigation to make checking the plan feel friendly and light enough to do when you’re tired.
A few versions along the way
the whole day at onceEarly schedule
trying smaller cardsDashboard exploration
figuring out the setupPlan prototype
Solution
My brother found the early version hard to understand on first launch. Watching him use it showed how much of the interface I expected people to know already.
I moved today’s sleep and the next two actions to the home screen. The full schedule stayed available in the overview. That split gave each screen a job: Home shows what to do next, and Overview shows how those actions fit into the day.
I softened the colours and used a sunrise on Home to make the check-in feel more inviting. The timeline could stay quieter, with colour reserved for cues like wake-up time and bright light.
Bringing the screens together
App icon explorations
I kept the same sleepy shape across three colour studies: blue, peach, and orange. The idea was to carry the same friendly tone from the home screen into the icon.
Soja app icons
What I learned
Watching someone use a prototype gave me a clearer priority than another pass on the layout: decide what belongs on the first screen. Showing the next two actions gave people a place to start.
I’d share the early prototypes sooner next time. The remaining question is whether Soja is easy to come back to over several days, once the initial setup is behind you.