Digital wellbeing is a response to the current societal challenges of technology overuse and smartphone addiction. There is limited knowledge about designing for digital wellbeing, despite digital wellbeing tools becoming increasingly popular. This study looks beyond features and directs the research towards information architecture. This study examines choice architectures within contemporary digital wellbeing applications to better understand their design and structure. Specifically, it investigates how design influences decision-making processes and self-regulatory systems. Empirical data was gathered from six digital wellbeing applications and analysed abductively by adopting a qualitative content analysis approach. Despite all the applications having a high user rating, they are not designed to facilitate self-regulation. Instead of providing helpful tools to mitigate problematic smartphone use, the applications use strategies that emphasise overriding set time limits. Furthermore, digital wellbeing design principles can be considered ambiguous and lack sufficient understanding of information architecture and psychology. The results led to discussions about the motives behind digital wellbeing, contextual awareness, and how digital wellbeing challenges current views of ethics and design strategies.

The master’s thesis is focused on the creation of a viable business plan for establishing a new company offering a digital wellbeing service. Firstly, the theoretical framework is created and subsequently utilized to define and verify the main idea by its qualitative research using the Lean Canvas method and to carry out further analyses of general, market and internal environment. Secondly, based on the results of the validation and analysis of the business environment, a suitable strategy and business model are selected. This business model is developed into the structure of individual parts of the business plan.

With the emergence of ubiquitous computing and biosensing technologies, there is a growing interest to explore wellbeing within design research. This paper unpacks the notion of wellbeing from somaesthetic and feminist perspectives. Through a series of evocative first-person design explorations, a soma-based design workshop, and a cultural probes study, I re-think wellbeing along the concept of the ever-changing body, a continuously and holistically changing organism with human and non-human features which is influenced by society, culture and economy. This contributes to a new understanding on how we relate to wellbeing and to practices of care and wellness, and how might we design technologies for awareness and understanding of our wellbeing. As the process unfolds, I discuss alternative design approaches for digital wellbeing considering aspects of touch and discomfort, materiality as a probe and care for the more-than-human. I argue that the slowness and openness of somaesthetic design paired with the open-ended character of cultural probes reveal tensions that exist between individuals and wellbeing and facilitate a greater diversity of bodies and minds. With this project, I propose an open-ended design approach to wellbeing building on the soma design space that can be used in the design of biosensing technologies for wellbeing. / Med framväxten av allestädes närvarande datorer och bioavkänningssensing-teknologier finns det ett växande intresse för att utforska välbefinnande inom designforskning. Denna artikel tar upp begreppet välbefinnande på en individuell berikad med andras förstapersonsupplevelser ur somestetiska samtoch feministiska perspektiv. Genom en serie stämningsfulla designutforskningar i första person, en soma-baserad designworkshop och en kulturell probesstudie utforskarstuderar jag välbefinnande längs konceptet ever-changing body, en kontinuerligt och holistiskt föränderlig organism med mänskliga och icke-mänskliga egenskaper som påverkas av samhälle, kultur och ekonomi. Detta bidrar till en ny förståelse för hur vi förhåller oss till välbefinnande och till praxis för vård och välbefinnande, samtoch hur vi kan utforma teknologier för medvetenhet och förståelse för vårt välbefinnande. Jag hävdar att långsamheten och öppenheten ihos somestetisk design i kombination med den öppna karaktären hos kulturella undersökningar avslöjar spänningar som finns mellan individer och välbefinnande vilkeoch underlättar en större mångfald av kroppar och sinnen. Allt eftersom processen utvecklas, jag diskuterar alternativa designmetoder för digitalt välbefinnande med tanke på aspekter såsomav beröring och obehag, materialitet som en sond och mer än mänsklig design i åtanke. Med det här projektet föreslår jag en öppen designstrategi för välbefinnande som bygger på soma-designutrymmet som kan användas vid utformningen av bioavkännings-teknologier för välbefinnande.

To be able to sleep is vital for our existence. During the process of falling asleep, many people are struggling and as an outcome, various mental health problems and sleep disorders are occurring among them. Previous studies are blaming the spreading health problems on the smartphone users for bringing their phone into their bedroom. Simultaneously, studies are showing that nocturnal smartphone usage is extremely common, with a huge spike in use during nighttime. Also, findings in studies with a different area of focus are showing that people suffering from sleep difficulties and insomnia benefits from visual stimulation and focused attention during sleep onset. This study aims to find beneficial smartphone interactions for people who are currently experiencing sleep problems. By gathering information from literature and previous studies done in the fields of insomnia, mental health problems, smartphone usage, human-computer interaction and sleep in general, the theoretical foundation of this study is laid out. To verify the previous findings and find out more about nocturnal smartphone usage, interviews and exercises with both subjective good and bad sleepers are performed. Ideas are generated and extracted through a workshop together with the collaboration partners. Visualization of the possible solution is made as a hi-fi prototype, which is later tested upon the target group of bad sleepers for three nights. In combination, the solution concept is tested together with a secondary concept through the Wizard of Oz method. The evaluation of the concepts is collected as an online form through their smartphones and the feedback from the participants is leading to a final design suggestion. This study is presenting solutions for designing for nocturnal usage, which through this study has been proven decreasing the subjective sleep onset latency among the users and in the long run will improve the user's digital well being.