Abstract
Sleep is fundamental to health and well-being, yet sleep problems have risen sharply in recent years. These problems often arise from individual and contextual factors, some of which are modifiable through behaviour or design. Research examining sleep’s contextual factors and how they can inform design interventions remains limited. This article presents two connected workshops exploring these aspects of sleep using participatory and speculative design methods. The first workshop invited participants to map contextual aspects of sleep through empathy maps and speculative exercises revealing three themes affecting sleep: safety, sleep routines, and stress or anxiety. The second focused on ideation asking design students to prototype sonic interventions addressing these themes. These prototypes were analysed by a professional sound designer to identify novel design elements. Findings highlight key considerations related to agency, ethics and technology, and offer insights and a flexible participatory methodology and framework for bridging user needs and design expertise.
Keywords
sleep, context, sound, sonic interaction design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1866
Citation
Choubey, A., van Buijtene, T., and Pauletto, S. (2026) Investigating context in sonic interaction design for sleep: Bridging users and designers through participatory and ideation workshops, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1866
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Investigating context in sonic interaction design for sleep: Bridging users and designers through participatory and ideation workshops
Sleep is fundamental to health and well-being, yet sleep problems have risen sharply in recent years. These problems often arise from individual and contextual factors, some of which are modifiable through behaviour or design. Research examining sleep’s contextual factors and how they can inform design interventions remains limited. This article presents two connected workshops exploring these aspects of sleep using participatory and speculative design methods. The first workshop invited participants to map contextual aspects of sleep through empathy maps and speculative exercises revealing three themes affecting sleep: safety, sleep routines, and stress or anxiety. The second focused on ideation asking design students to prototype sonic interventions addressing these themes. These prototypes were analysed by a professional sound designer to identify novel design elements. Findings highlight key considerations related to agency, ethics and technology, and offer insights and a flexible participatory methodology and framework for bridging user needs and design expertise.