Introduction: Sleepcycle and Genway

Sleepcycle is recognized as the world’s number 1 Sleep App revolutionizing how people monitor and improve their sleep. Given the sensitive nature of sleep data and the importance of localized user experiences, Sleepcycle partnered with Genway AI, a leading SaaS solution specializing in AI-Powered User Interviews, to conduct qualitative research in the strategic Japanese market.

Genway AI enables companies to collect in-depth insights through rapid, scalable, and qualitative interviews. By leveraging Genway’s advanced AI capabilities, Sleepcycle aimed to gather granular, context-aware feedback from Japanese users regarding key feature usability and onboarding flows, ensuring data-driven decisions were made to enhance the user experience.

Methodology

The research employed a qualitative AI-Moderated Usability Studies focused on understanding user interaction and perception within the Sleepcycle mobile application prototype.

Key aspects of the methodology included:

• Focus on the Japanese Market: The study was directed toward Japanese users and was conducted entirely in the Japanese language, ensuring genuine localized feedback.

• Prototype Testing: The core focus was testing a new user flow centered on the sleep tracking feature. This prototype allowed users to experience a brief trial period, three days of sleep tracking, without requiring immediate account creation.

• Qualitative Data Collection: Genway’s AI Agent conducted Contextual Interviews (1-to-1 interviews) with participants as they navigated the prototype. This approach allowed the research team to gain valuable, real-time insights efficiently, diving into behaviors and motivations that analytics alone cannot capture.

• Interview Focus: The interviews explored user impressions, expectations upon clicking buttons, understanding of privacy consents, clarity of app terminology, and willingness to continue using the service after the free trial.

The qualitative focus of the research ensured that Sleepcycle received rich, detailed feedback on usability and messaging clarity from a crucial international demographic.

Conclusions and Impact

The qualitative research provided several critical insights into the Japanese user experience, particularly concerning onboarding, feature value, and clarity around the transition from a free trial to a paid service.

Key Insights

1. Lack of Clarity Regarding Trial End and Payment: A major finding was the ambiguity surrounding the end of the 3-day free trial and the subsequent steps required for continued use. Participants noted that essential information about registration and payment was often not shown clearly on the screen. Furthermore, the initial messaging promising "No account registration required" created potential confusion when account registration and payment became necessary later.

2. Confusing Terminology and Onboarding: Users were often confused by specific language in the prototype. For instance, the general concept of "sleep tracking" was sometimes misunderstood. Additionally, the term "free preview," which appeared suddenly after the first night of recorded sleep, was deemed too abstract, with users suggesting a more concrete phrasing like "You can use it for two more nights for free".

3. Feature Appeal: Detailed Data and Sound Recording: Japanese users found significant value in the application's ability to provide objective, detailed sleep analysis. The ability to record sounds during sleep, such as snoring or sleep talking, was highlighted as particularly interesting and useful for understanding and improving sleep quality.

4. Demand for Immediate Sleep Quality Scoring: While users appreciated the detailed graphs, they requested more immediate, glanceable metrics for evaluating performance. Users suggested that a clear score, like "Your sleep score is X points," based on the analysis would be beneficial for quickly assessing the quality of their sleep.

5. Existing User Motivation: The initial screens failed to motivate existing Sleep Cycle users, as they lacked details about what new features the prototype was offering. Additionally, existing users found the repeated request for privacy consent confusing and unnecessary, making them hesitant to proceed.

Impact

The inclusion of a click heatmap for the prototype added valuable context, helping the team visually confirm user confusion points and interaction patterns that aligned with the qualitative feedback. The insights helped Sleep Cycle refine the Japanese onboarding and trial experience by clarifying expectations, strengthening feature explanations, and ensuring that key screens match user mental models. The findings also supported prioritization of data visualization improvements and more consistent messaging around free trials.

For Genway, this project demonstrated the ability to run high quality moderated-style interviews entirely in Japanese, with participants responding naturally and fluently.

Supporting Participant Quotes

These insights were directly supported by participant feedback captured during the qualitative interviews:

Fredrik Påhlman, Product Designer at Sleep Cycle:

This comprehensive research project allowed Sleepcycle to pinpoint specific areas of confusion in the onboarding flow and clarify messaging critical for Japanese users, ensuring the app’s value proposition - particularly the advanced sleep analysis features - was effectively communicated to maximize trial-to-paid conversion in the region.