Design for People & Society: Turning the Product Impact Tool into a Design Tool

Designers have a key role in the creation of the products and technologies that shape people and society. Awareness of the societal effect of their designs is, therefore, an important quality. The Product Impact Tool (PIT) is a tool that originated in philosophy of technology and elaborates how technologies can have a social impact. The tool has the potential to be of use to designers to design more socially acceptable products, but does not yet fit into the process of design. In this paper the PIT is further developed into a tool for designers. The question answered is how designers can make better use of the PIT to create designs for people and society. Through a literature study, interviews and ideation phase, the Product Impact Tool For Designers (PITFD) was developed. The PITFD was then tested with both professional- and student designers and improved further. It contains four booklets and a worksheet to be used in a brainstorm session and is developed to be more practical in use for designers, to leave room for creativity and to be flexible in different kinds of design processes. Using the Product Impact Tool For Designers, designers can create products that better fit the user and have a more acceptable impact on society