01
Brain dump
Three minutes to write down what's unfinished, and a time tomorrow to think about it. Getting it out of your head beats looping it.
Unload · worry postponedAPH005 · Tutorial 4 · Group 7 · Concept
We won't rush you to sleep.
We'll help your mind power down.No need to rush.
Just power down.
Night Buffer is a pre-sleep anxiety buffer for university students. Three minutes to unload what's on your mind, twenty to let your body downshift, then a handoff — the phone and the night, set down together.
01 / THE PROBLEM
Sleep isn't the problem.
Switching off is.
The day is booked solid, so the night becomes the only hours that are yours — and you won't spend them on sleep. Then you lie down, and everything unfinished arrives at once. The phone is both where the worry goes and what keeps you up.
01
Pressure
Deadlines, exams, other people, an uncertain future — it all piles up at the end of the day.
02
Pre-sleep arousal
You lie down and the mind starts rehearsing, replaying, doing the sums. Your body is resting; your head is still in a meeting.
Where we step in
03
Later sleep · lighter sleep
The less you sleep, the more anxious you get. The more tired you are, the less you want to give up the night.
43.03%of Chinese university students score poorly on the PSQI · n=3,423
20 minawake in bed is long enough to get up · CBT-I stimulus control
0 costFree, anonymous, easy to leave. Nothing new to carry.
Sources: Journal of Affective Disorders (2023); Journal of Sleep Research (2025 online / 2026 issue); Behavioral Sleep Medicine (2024 online / 2025 issue).
02 / THE PROTOTYPE
One night, five screens.
On the right is a prototype you can tap. It doesn't try to do everything well; it tests one thing: if shutting down is broken into small enough steps, is it easier to stop?
01TONIGHT
See it first, then decide
How long is left before sleep sits at the top, in the largest type on the screen. Then ten seconds to note how you feel. Not a nudge — just a way of making a vague night visible.
Tap the buttons inside the phone — the prototype is interactive
Good evening, Zhi'en
Slow down tonight
6nights
Until target bedtimeTarget 00:00
01:13
22:3023:1500:30
How you feel right now
Brain dump
Three minutes to give tomorrow back to tomorrow
Three buffer habits1/3
Sleep mode starts automatically at 23:00
Bedtime ritual
20 minutes, three parts
013 min
Unload
Write the thoughts down, set one reminder for the morning
027 min
Downshift
4-7-8 breathing to bring your heart rate down
0310 min
Handoff
Phone locked, rain sound, the night handed back to you
Ambient sound
Choose tonight's sound
Tonight's boundaries
Phone lock23:00 – 07:00
Emergency contactGets through
Morning alarm07:30
The buffer unlocks at 7:30 tomorrow
Before bed
Light focus
15:00Ready when you are
Done tonight
220:10
Course essay
25 min21:05
Revision
25 minNo new tasks after 23:00. That's a kindness to tomorrow.
This week
28 Oct – 3 Nov
00:38Avg. sleep time
6h24Time asleep
1.2Night wakings
AnxietyTime to sleep
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
Show data table
| Day | Anxiety | To sleep |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 7 | 48 min |
| Tue | 6 | 42 min |
| Wed | 8 | 55 min |
| Thu | 5 | 35 min |
| Fri | 4 | 28 min |
| Sat | 6 | 38 min |
| Sun | 3 | 22 min |
Where the anxiety comes from
On the 4 nights you wrote things down, you fell asleep 14 minutes faster on average.
6 nights of buffer in a row
Z
Zhi'en
XJTLU · Year 2 · Residential college
Sleep buddies
Same floor · 4 people
HanYuanTong+
Three of them are in the buffer tonight. Say goodnight; no comparing.
Target bedtime00:00
Phone lock23:00 – 07:00
Greyscale at 22:30
White noise · rain
Data stays on device
If the anxiety lasts more than two weeks
This isn't a question of willpower. The university counselling centre offers free, confidential sessions.
How to book →Night Buffer v0.1 · Course concept prototype
03 / THE DIFFERENCE
Not another
screen-time blocker.
A hard lock answers the phone in your hand; it doesn't answer the head that won't stop. Push harder on the first and the second pushes back. So we reversed the order: settle the anxiety first, hand the phone over second.
Compare
Typical lock or focus app
Night Buffer
Starting point
Takes the phone away first, assuming you don't want to sleep
Lowers pre-sleep arousal first, then talks about putting the phone down
Locking
Screen goes black on schedule, one blunt cut
Booked ahead, greyscale, rain — handed over step by step
Second thoughts
Forced block, which invites revenge bedtime
Three breaths first, still your choice
Pomodoro
Designed for daytime productivity
Shortens itself at 22:30, no new tasks at 23:00
Data
Rankings, check-ins, public streaks
Only you see it. Trends, not scores.
Other people
A leaderboard of strangers
Roommates and floor-mates: witnesses, not comparisons
04 / THE FEATURES
Not a pile of features.
One path through the evening.
Six features, one timeline: from seeing the night clearly to putting the phone down. Each step is small enough to do tonight.
02
4-7-8 breathing
Follow the light: in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. It doesn't have to be textbook — just slower than before.
Downshift · relaxation
03
A gentler lock
Scheduled ahead, with emergency contacts let through. If you change your mind, take three breaths first. Locking is the last step, not the first.
Handoff · stimulus control
04
A bedtime pomodoro
After 22:30 it switches to fifteen-minute light focus; at 23:00 no new task can start. Focus gives way to sleep.
Boundary · time anchor
05
A ten-second sleep log
Two questions only: how long it took last night, and how it felt. After a week, the link between anxiety and falling asleep starts to show.
Log · feedback loop
06
Sleep buddies
Floor-mates say goodnight. No chat, no ranking. Turning the light off with someone else is easier than doing it alone.
Support · no comparing05 / FEASIBILITY
Is a web page
enough?
The thing that sinks a course project is thinking big and shipping nothing. So we start with the edges: what we can build now, what needs native access, and what should belong to the university.
One link, nothing to install
Full-screen ritual, breathing animation, timer, sleep log, offline caching. Scan and open; nothing to download.
For a course demo that is enough to test whether a ritual makes putting the phone down easier.
A real lock needs an app
A web page can't block other apps, and can't read system screen time. iOS needs the Screen Time API; Android needs accessibility permissions.
The course build simulates it with full screen, the phone face down, scheduled notifications and a buddy as witness — and we say so plainly in the defence.
From tool to mechanism
Induction-week outreach, residential-college co-ownership, counselling-centre referral. Anonymised aggregate data could become a campus sleep report.
That gets closer to Q3's question — what XJTLU can actually provide — than another standalone app.
WEEK 01
Interviews and low-fi
Talk to eight students about the last 30 minutes before bed, map the real timeline, cut the invented needs.
WEEK 02
Front-end MVP
Tonight screen, brain dump, breathing, timer. Local data only; one complete path working end to end.
WEEK 03
Usability testing
Five to eight people walk the flow. Record completion, sticking points, and whether the lock provokes a reaction.
WEEK 04
Iterate and present
Add the weekly recap and the buddy feature, record a 90-second demo, and line each product decision up with the research question.
What we measure · ritual completion
self-reported time to sleep, before and after
pre-sleep phone time
PSAS, small-sample pre/post
7-day retention
NIGHT BUFFER · 2026
Give yourself twenty minutes tonight.
It doesn't take willpower. It takes a beginning.
Walk through the prototype again