Speculative Design for & with
the Product Impact Tool
Case Study of Sleep Tracking Technologies
November 2023 - February 2024
Individual Project · Bachelor Level · Industrial Design Engineering
Course: Minor Scientific Challenges
Sleep-tracking technologies are increasingly embedded in everyday life, promising better habits through data and feedback. However, their influence on user behaviour is often unclear, inconsistent, or even counterproductive, as users may ignore data or feel overwhelmed by it. This project addresses how these technologies truly shape behaviour, questioning the assumption that awareness alone leads to change. It explores how the Product Impact Tool can be used to analyse these influences, through which dimensions sleep technologies affect users, and whether these impacts can be intentionally shifted through design.
Problem Statement
The project focuses on understanding and redefining the ways in which technologies influence user behaviour, using sleep-tracking technologies as a case study to explore these effects in a familiar, everyday context. The guiding research questions were:
How the Product Impact Tool can be applied as a design method to identify how sleep-tracking technologies shape behaviour, and whether these influences can be intentionally shifted through redesign?
Methodology
The project follows a research-through-design approach, combining analysis with speculative redesign. Five categories of sleep technologies were selected, including wearables, bedside monitors, smartphone applications, environmental control devices, and bedding products. Each category was analysed using the Product Impact Tool to identify its dominant behavioural influence. Based on this, redesigns were developed to intentionally shift this impact to a different dimension, exploring alternative ways in which technology can shape user behaviour beyond conventional data-driven approaches.
Product Impact Tool
The Product Impact Tool is an analytical framework for understanding how products influence user behaviour beyond their intended function. It examines four dimensions of impact: cognitive, physical, environmental, and abstract, also described as “before the eye”, “to the hand”, “behind the back”, and “above the head”. Rather than focusing solely on usability, the tool highlights different forms of influence, such as guidance, persuasion, coercion, and subconscious effects, enabling a deeper understanding of how technologies shape users' actions, experiences, and perceptions.
Analysis
Across the five categories, different patterns of influence emerge. Wearable devices and smartphone applications predominantly operate within the cognitive and physical dimensions, relying on data, feedback, and notifications to guide behaviour while their constant presence reinforces routines. Bedside monitors combine cognitive guidance with environmental influence through light and sound, although they can also introduce disturbances. Environmental control devices and bedding products, in contrast, act mainly through the environmental dimension, shaping background conditions in subtle and often invisible ways. Across all categories, the abstract impact reflects a tension between support and control, where technologies can improve awareness and habits, but also lead to stress, dependency, or reduced autonomy. Overall, these systems tend to prioritise information-driven interaction, assuming that awareness alone leads to behavioural change.
Redesign
The redesign repositions each category by shifting its dominant form of influence. Wearable devices move away from constant feedback towards more passive, adaptive systems that shape the environment rather than the interface. Bedside monitors shift from screen-based interaction to tactile and sensory engagement, influencing behaviour through physical experience. Smartphones and sleep-tracking applications evolve into part of a broader ecosystem, reducing reliance on a single device and embedding influence across connected systems. Environmental control devices become more interactive and communicative, balancing their passive role with more explicit engagement. Bedding products take on a more active role, introducing physical and behavioural cues that make their influence more perceptible. Together, these redesigns explore alternative ways of shaping behaviour, moving from direct instruction towards more subtle, embodied, and contextual forms of influence.
Conclusion
The project shows that small shifts in how a technology influences users can significantly change the overall experience. Moving away from data-heavy, feedback-driven approaches opens up alternative ways of shaping behaviour through environment, interaction, and context. These explorations reveal a spectrum between subtle support and intrusive control, highlighting the importance of intentional design choices. Ultimately, the work reframes sleep technologies not just as tools for optimisation, but as systems that actively structure everyday routines and user autonomy.
Reflection
This project was an opportunity to explore speculative design as both a creative and analytical tool. I discovered how powerful the Product Impact Tool can be for questioning the role of technology in shaping everyday experiences, and how intentional design shifts can open up entirely new ways of interacting with familiar products. More importantly, it reaffirmed my passion for creating designs that go beyond function, combining cultural context, sensory experience, and behavioural insight to create meaningful interactions.