Drug-Free Sleep
Digital therapy for insomnia.
Product Design · Systems Design · Weller Labs
A platform that let clinicians build and deliver their own evidence-based digital therapeutics. The first program: behavioral treatment for insomnia.
Challenge
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is highly effective for treating insomnia, but translating therapy protocols into software presents unique challenges. CBT depends on pacing, behavioral practice, and reinforcement over time. If users move through material too quickly or skip key steps, the therapeutic benefits can break down.
At the same time, the platform needed to support clinicians authoring different types of CBT programs, requiring a system flexible enough to accommodate multiple therapies while preserving structured treatment progression.
Approach
The work spanned both the clinician authoring platform and the patient-facing therapeutic experience. The sleep program translated behavioral sleep techniques into a structured digital format that functioned more like a guided course than a typical health app.
Design explorations focused on pacing treatment modules, supporting behavioral exercises and sleep tracking, and enabling clinicians to assemble therapy programs while maintaining evidence-based CBT structure.
Outcome
A CBT-based digital sleep therapy built on a proprietary authoring platform designed for clinicians to develop and deploy digital therapeutics. The deeper design challenge was the platform itself: building tools expressive enough for therapists to author clinical programs without engineering support.
The platform launched with its first clinical partners. Drug-Free Sleep was the proof of concept that the authoring model worked.
