Current sleep self-tracking methods are limited in their ability to convey desired and expected effects. Research has shown that users over trust the data of their tracker, which could potentially cause the user to internalize their data in a restrictive nature. Our research considers how ambiguous design can help empower users in perceiving their sleep. Ambiguous design in this scope is defined as design aiming at encouraging openness of interpretation, allowing users to give their own meaning to visualizations. This leads to our research question: ‘To what extent can ambiguity be used to empower users in data representations?’
The team has taken a mixed-method research design approach while developing three separate probes with Gavers’ principles. These visualizations aim to significantly differentiate in the amount of complex, ambiguous data, in order to measure to what extent internalization and empowerment in sleep tracking data is visible.
