Design Fiction Sparking the collective imagination of the future

Status...

Merge the insight cluster 1 cluster 2

John Heskett From Design: A Very Short Introduction Design is to design a design to produce a design.

John Heskett From Design: A Very Short Introduction verb noun (2) Design is to design a design to produce a design. noun (1) noun (3)

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut Design in praxis always have one important alteration Design is to design a design to produce a design.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut Design in praxis always have one important alteration Design is to design designs to produce a design.

The process Data Concept

Iterative, explorative, but terminal...we cycle in a funnel between concept convergence and concept generation Front-end Design Work PDS Concept Generation Initial number of concepts based on PDS Initial number reduced Research New ones added Further reduction (FR) Further addition (FA) Sketching Prototyping implement! FR FA Concept Selected CC = Controlled Convergence CG = Concept Generation CC CG CC CG CC CG CC Steve Pugh 1990

Design as translation Design seeks to generate meaning from chaos A designer begins to act as a translator. Both visualizing ideas as they are developed and refined and also translating vague descriptions, gestures, or references to new ideas, into more actionable concrete representations that can be explored further (...) Jon Kolko (2011)

Design as translation Design seeks to generate meaning from chaos (...) The medium that a designer manipulates is human behavior and experience, and the material is the digital fabric: bits, bytes, pixel and processors. Jon Kolko (2011)

It s a tough balance... From Buxton s Sketching User Experiences (2007) Design is compromise. between forms functions styles problems solutions stakeholders knowledge domains

The challenge qua Buxton The hard part of working with reflective design problems Getting the right design......and getting the design right

The challenge qua Buxton The hard part of working with reflective design problems do we solve the right problem? Getting the right design......and getting the design right do we solve the problem appropriately?

why is this important

Local hill climping The first idea gives us a space to explore... I got an idea! Greenberg et al 2011

Local hill climping After some time and work we reach the local maxima...we iteratively climb the hill But is it a good idea? Greenberg et al 2011

The problem is quite clear The local maxima is not always equal to the global (optimal) maxima Greenberg et al 2011

...history has a lot of examples So get the right design before working to get the design right

The inertia of innovation We need tools that allow us to avoid the pit fall of local hills In terms of stifling innovation, good ideas are more dangerous than bad ones. They take hold, assume momentum, and therefore result in intertia Buxton 2007...intertia must be avoided

...and Buxton won t shut up! Billy Boy makes a clear summary of why exploration matter Without informed design - technology is more likely to do bad than good Buxton 2007

ERGO... We need a new model...of how to explore ideas and problems outside the local hill

multiple stories? Greenberg et al 2011

...once upon a possible world A theoretical framework som poetics may be our beginning In order to embrace fiction as a central practice in design as well as in art and literature an alternative theory of fiction has been developed more recently within poetics. The so-called possible world theory (or possible world semantics) is based on the assumption that fictions can be properly understood as possible worlds, which can be either easy or difficult to access from our real world. Accessibility can be characterized, for instance, in terms of basic ontological laws that enable and constrain entities behaviour in a possible world as compared to the real world.

...once upon a possible world A theoretical framework som poetics may be our beginning Possible world 1 Possible world 2 You and I Here and now Possible world 3 Science fictional world

Possible future worlds The Future is kinda messy - but it s also hand made

Design + fiction A kind of halfway between fact and fiction (...) telling stories that appear real and legible (...) Offering some sort of reflection on how things are, and how they might become something else. JULIAN BLEEKER - near future laboratory

a formal definition exist "Design fiction is the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change." Bruce Sterling, 2012

One at a time The deliberate use of diegetic prototypes? "Deliberate use" means that design fiction is something that people do with a purpose. "Diegetic" is from film and theatre studies. A movie has a story, but it also has all the commentary, scene-setting, props, sets and gizmos to support that story. Design fiction doesn't tell stories -- instead, it designs prototypes that imply a changed world. "Suspending disbelief" means that design fiction has an ethics. Design fictions are fakes of a theatrical sort, but they're not wicked frauds or hoaxes intended to rob or fool people. A design fiction is a creative act that puts the viewer into a different conceptual space -- for a while. Then it lets him go. Design fiction has an audience, not victims. Bruce Sterling, 2012

Let me try giving it a go Design fiction uses techniques of fiction and drama to test the future, to see what future technologies or systems might work, on how they might be received and what their impact might be. It presents a series of alternative possible futures and shows which path might be preferable (or the opposite)...that s what this week is about

it s all in the what if?

What if X condition(s) were true? What if? A proposable good solution to a design problem, within a certain context Professor Jon Kolko, 2009

...a lot of design fiction comes from real past science fiction

75 years of imagining a concept

Minority Report

...and head on to 2012

Remember the diegesis Filmic depictions of future technologies are actually diegetic prototypes that demonstrate to a larger audience a technology s need, benevolence, and viability. Diegetic prototypes have a major rhetorical advantage over true prototypes: in the diegesis these technologies exist a real objects already implemented, which people actually use. David A. Kirby The Future is Now...stories matter a lot in terms of domesticating an idea

Props & Prototypes Think of design as prop-making for the near future. Design makes objects (non-humans) around which stories/conversations ensure, and imaginary worlds come into being....the same goes for the immateriality of services

A good example

...and it can be very rough Which lead s us to why design fiction is also sketching

Advertise the future design fiction as diegetic informercials

75 years of imagining a concept

it s all in the what if?

MAKE USE OF DESIGN FICTION

...two tools for today

First let s build a concept scenario

FACT Histories Lessons (example) Signals Necessities (data) PAST FUTURE Myths Dragons (misconceptions) Scenarios Possibilities (design fiction) FICTION

FACT Histories Lessons (example) Signals Necessities (data) PAST FUTURE Myths Dragons (misconceptions) Scenarios Possibilities (design fiction) FICTION Vistisen, 2013

next up is you first sketch of this workshop (which is not a video sketch)

Storyboards Depict your design space as a pieces of a visual story Scenarios keep the designer of computer systems and applications in the swamp, but by their very nature also provide scaffolding to get a view of the design situation from at bit higher up. Carroll, 1999

Storyboards Depict your design space as a pieces of a visual story

Storyboards Using different sketching patterns we may also add a little depth

Storyboards...or mix it up through multiple modalities

Assignment 1) Map out your problem space in the the design fiction matrix 2) Begin to discuss what if scenarios that could exist and how this possible world might look like from the user view point 3) Sketch out a detailed storyboard putting placing this possible world into a narrative piece of design fiction 4) Try to make at least 3-5 different scenarios 5) Establish what the core design element is in each concept, and break down the concepts in core design circles

Remember the web-page! 1) You must write up your groups reflections in order to reach 80% participation 2) Aim for at least 250 words about each method (including reflections from you meeting with the clients) 3) Use the framework presented by Ramesh

suited up since 1997...any questions?