My name is Atef, I am a final-year Product Design student at Nottingham Trent University. I’m currently working on my major project that is centred around raising awareness of Sleep Apnoea. I have a Google Forms questionnaire linked which asks some general questions about your experiences with Sleep Apnoea, how you learnt about it, and how you found the diagnosis process. Should take about 5-10 minutes.
All answers can be made anonymous if you so choose in the form. None of this research will be used for commercial reasons, this is just for me and my university lecturers to discuss and grade.
Please feel free to ask me any questions, I’m still trying to learn as much as I can about the field so any feedback or criticisms would be greatly appreciated, this will help a long way in adding some nuance to my project. The questionnaire doesn’t have a time limit, so please feel free to respond whenever you can.
If you would like to contact me directly, my email address is atefkhasawneh@gmail.com.
m.a.n rules:
what has this got to do with product design.
Hello,
While my course is called Product Design, we aren’t actually required to produce physical products, outcomes can be in the form of Websites, Campaigns, Applications, Product Systems and so on. So in my case, I’m looking into creating an awareness campaign paired with a phone app. Of course, this all depends on the responses I get but the general aim of my final project is to increase awareness of Sleep Apnoea.
Atef:
(…) but the general aim of my final project is to increase awareness of Sleep Apnoea.
Is your final project going to be submitted for publication on some science/engineering journal? Because if so, in the due Introduction part of the article, there will be need to explain what Sleep Apnoeeoia is, how it affects the sector of the public you are targetting and the social and economic consequences/implications; the ones would justify the need to such research and the proposed measures to address it, which they would expectedly be elaborated or at least hinted in the same paper. In short, why the matter would deserve the attention and/or funding you solicit.
We lorry drivers do not expect less than the academic peerage, and therefore look forward to you enlightening us with the aforementioned elaboration on the subject and its relevance to us as a targetted group here.
EDIT: I agree that you need an introductory page defining the different forms of sleep apnoea, you should also be aware that being medically diagnosed with SA means being forbidden from HGV driving until further medical investigations have been completed, so why would a truck driver website be a good source of information for you? gov.uk/government/publicati … fessionals
I live in Australia, but sleep apnoea’s the same the world over. I used to want to sleep around lunch time and often did. Never fell asleep at the wheel, but seemed to be constantly tired. In the 80’s & 90’s I told two GP’s of this and they did nothing, so I carried on with my job of driving heavies.
At this time I was as fit as butchers dog and had no paunch/beer gut at all.
In 2006 I saw a third GP who happened to be an enormously fat bloke (there’s a clue to how he knew) and he said straight away 'Sleep apnoea." I was put up the front of the queue at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane where, after a sleep study, I was diagnosed with OSA. They lent me a CPAP machine which must have been as old as me, so I bought a good one and haven’t looked back.
Atef:
(…) but the general aim of my final project is to increase awareness of Sleep Apnoea.
Is your final project going to be submitted for publication on some science/engineering journal? Because if so, in the due Introduction part of the article, there will be need to explain what Sleep Apnoeeoia is, how it affects the sector of the public you are targetting and the social and economic consequences/implications; the ones would justify the need to such research and the proposed measures to address it, which they would expectedly be elaborated or at least hinted in the same paper. In short, why the matter would deserve the attention and/or funding you solicit.
We lorry drivers do not expect less than the academic peerage, and therefore look forward to you enlightening us with the aforementioned elaboration on the subject and its relevance to us as a targetted group here.
.
Hello,
So the final project is only meant to be for me and my lecturers to see and grade, it’s not going to be posted in scientific journals. The reason why they want me to carry out proper research like this is to show that I can be resourceful in collecting primary research, and can analyse the collected data to create a final outcome that satisfies the findings of that research.
This questionnaire is directed towards people who have heard of or have been diagnosed with Apnoea, I’ve set it up that way so that I can understand their journey and use their feedback to improve the experience of those who are yet to be diagnosed with it. The reason why I chose truck drivers as a target audience is that I deemed truckers a high-priority group when it comes to issues related to sleep. Truck drivers operate trucks that weigh thousands of pounds while completing a super vital task that keeps our economies running. Even if the UK government mandates truck drivers in the country to check on their sleep apnoea, plenty of other countries around the world might not have the same mandates. So it would be great to understand the target audience better so that I can potentially expand my awareness efforts internationally as well.
Zac_A:
EDIT: I agree that you need an introductory page defining the different forms of sleep apnoea, you should also be aware that being medically diagnosed with SA means being forbidden from HGV driving until further medical investigations have been completed, so why would a truck driver website be a good source of information for you? gov.uk/government/publicati … fessionals
Hello,
The reason why I chose truck drivers as a target audience is that I deemed truckers a high-priority group when it comes to issues related to sleep. Truck drivers operate trucks that weigh thousands of pounds while completing a super vital task that keeps our economies running. Even if the UK government mandates truck drivers in the country to check on their sleep apnoea, plenty of other countries around the world might not have the same mandates. So it would be great to understand the target audience better so that I can potentially expand my awareness efforts internationally as well.
The reason why they want me to carry out proper research like this is to show that I can be resourceful in collecting primary research, and can analyse the collected data to create a final outcome that satisfies the findings of that research.
I’ve pointed out that anything you garner from HGV drivers is inherently biased due to SA being a contraindication to being an HGV driver. So it isn’t going to be of much help overall. Surely your lecturers would have discussed the various types of bias that need to be avoided?
The reason why they want me to carry out proper research like this is to show that I can be resourceful in collecting primary research, and can analyse the collected data to create a final outcome that satisfies the findings of that research.
I’ve pointed out that anything you garner from HGV drivers is inherently biased due to SA being a contraindication to being an HGV driver. So it isn’t going to be of much help overall. Surely your lecturers would have discussed the various types of bias that need to be avoided?
Lorry drivers would give a biased sample if the survey was seeking to capture a global picture. He isn`t.
The OP has stated reasons that he is actively targeting drivers
Atef:
The reason why I chose truck drivers as a target audience is that I deemed truckers a high-priority group when it comes to issues related to sleep. Truck drivers operate trucks that weigh thousands of pounds while completing a super vital task that keeps our economies running. Even if the UK government mandates truck drivers in the country to check on their sleep apnoea, plenty of other countries around the world might not have the same mandates. So it would be great to understand the target audience better so that I can potentially expand my awareness efforts internationally as well.
I wonder (from my armchair and 5 mins thought) whether a survey of all lorry drivers, not just those already diagnosed with SA, to check on their levels of awareness, compared with those diagnosed, would provide a baseline of SA awareness?
And maybe compare that with results from a survey of the general population.
Isnt that what is important? Seeing whether professional drivers are aware of SA as a problem? Compare their awareness with the publics?
We’ve already seen someone this past week claiming that it was “discrimination” to be “let go” because of sleep apnoea. From everything I’ve read on TN I’d expect the overall awareness of the health issues that would cause loss of HGV entitlement to be quite poor, so if OP was seeking specific SA info, he’d have been better casting a wider net.
I’d have to say that a Google form survey was a pretty weak basis for what sounds like a third-year dissertation, for OPs sake I hope he has many other strings to his bow than just this.
Setting assignments simply to demonstrate the ability to use the internet to do research was just second-year stuff back in my day; our third year projects were far more substantial, I worked in a hospital muscular dystrophy research lab, my buddy doing a Design degree worked in the research department for the premier UK manufacturer of scuba regulators.
The reason why they want me to carry out proper research like this is to show that I can be resourceful in collecting primary research, and can analyse the collected data to create a final outcome that satisfies the findings of that research.
I’ve pointed out that anything you garner from HGV drivers is inherently biased due to SA being a contraindication to being an HGV driver. So it isn’t going to be of much help overall. Surely your lecturers would have discussed the various types of bias that need to be avoided?
Lorry drivers would give a biased sample if the survey was seeking to capture a global picture. He isn`t.
The OP has stated reasons that he is actively targeting drivers
Atef:
The reason why I chose truck drivers as a target audience is that I deemed truckers a high-priority group when it comes to issues related to sleep. Truck drivers operate trucks that weigh thousands of pounds while completing a super vital task that keeps our economies running. Even if the UK government mandates truck drivers in the country to check on their sleep apnoea, plenty of other countries around the world might not have the same mandates. So it would be great to understand the target audience better so that I can potentially expand my awareness efforts internationally as well.
I wonder (from my armchair and 5 mins thought) whether a survey of all lorry drivers, not just those already diagnosed with SA, to check on their levels of awareness, compared with those diagnosed, would provide a baseline of SA awareness?
And maybe compare that with results from a survey of the general population.
Isnt that what is important? Seeing whether professional drivers are aware of SA as a problem? Compare their awareness with the publics?
Hi,
Yep, I have carried out a separate survey for the general population with contacts from a sleep clinic, I asked them similar questions and I do plan on comparing both the results once I’ve gathered a good amount.
Zac_A:
We’ve already seen someone this past week claiming that it was “discrimination” to be “let go” because of sleep apnoea. From everything I’ve read on TN I’d expect the overall awareness of the health issues that would cause loss of HGV entitlement to be quite poor, so if OP was seeking specific SA info, he’d have been better casting a wider net.
I’d have to say that a Google form survey was a pretty weak basis for what sounds like a third-year dissertation, for OPs sake I hope he has many other strings to his bow than just this.
Setting assignments simply to demonstrate the ability to use the internet to do research was just second-year stuff back in my day; our third year projects were far more substantial, I worked in a hospital muscular dystrophy research lab, my buddy doing a Design degree worked in the research department for the premier UK manufacturer of scuba regulators.
Hello,
To clarify, this isn’t for my final year dissertation, it’s for a Self-directed Major project for our final year, where we are expected to come up with a physical/digital solution to our set problem. This questionnaire isn’t the only form of research I’ve done so far, I’ve expanded all the research avenues I can from within the healthcare system in the country, and all that was left for me was to gather some data from the chosen target group. I understand what you mean by the lack of depth, however, for this 4-month long project, the research phase only makes up for about a quarter. Once the research is done I’ll move on to the Ideation and development stages.
