Design-through-futures: Creating and Inflecting Futures to Foresee Issues and Insights in Our Unknown Life
Sung Jun Kim
1
Research Keywords
Future-oriented Design;
Design Fiction;
Speculative Design;
Experiential Futures;
Diegetic Prototype
Figure 1
'Life in Motion,' Sung Jun Kim, 2017
Research Statement
Arguably the biggest design practice trend in the present is user experience design. User Experience (UX) design provides an ability to create breakthrough products by discovering hidden issues and suggest solutions to better experiences for users. However, UX has often faced limitations in delivering outcomes due to fast-changing circumstances. (Figure 2) Because UX focuses on unveiling hidden issues within the present, UX tends to be limited by its pursuit of design opportunities with emerging changes.
Future-oriented design studies have been introduced to speculate and provide visions of what could be happening in futures. According to Stuart Candy, inside-out thinking is to imagine, foresight what might be happening in the future based on the past and the present. (Figure 2) On the other hand, outside-in thinking allows us to consider possible actions according to the foresighted future. These two thinking can be described as how we benefit from the weather forecast. How we predict changes in the weather is inside-out thinking and the forecast informs us of plans and actions as we think outside-in. Moreover, those two thinking can take place at the same time. Combined thinking of Inside-out and Outside-in creates a converged area to create to experience a future in the present.
Figure 2
Limitation of UX Design (left), Future-Oriented Design Practices (center), and Future-Oriented Thinking (right)
Three future-oriented design practices will be considered in this research. (Figure 3) Design-fiction is a design practice based on fictional stories. A diegetic prototype is a design object specifically based on design fiction to provide a realistic experience to audiences. For example, Life in Motion utilizes objectified toy cars from the future autonomous transportation ecosystems. Experiential Futures is another future-building practice to provide an immersive experience of made futures within different levels. Speculative Design utilizes different types of futures to critique, provoke, social issues with designed objects.
Figure 3
Three Future-Oriented Design Practices
Design Fiction, Sterling, 2011. (2011) (far left),
Diegetic Prototype, Life in Motion, Kim, (2017) (left),
Experiential Futures, Candy, (2010) (right),
Speculative Design, Dunne and Raby, (2014) (far right).
These future-oriented design practices can found in a handful of works. (Figure 4) 'Emma' is a human figure which speculates and visualizes an 'office worker' in the future. The awkward-looking posture of 'Emma' makes us consider the side and negative influences of workspace, sitting in front of a computer all day long. Tseng's 'Digestive Car,' on the other hand, is based on alternative energy-powered vehicles in the future. Motivated by the cow's digestion system, the car's power source is fiber nutrition.
Figure 4
'Emma' Higham, 2019
'Digestive Car' Tseng, 2015
Based on design practices dealing with futures - I came up with questions to explore.
How might we
create insightful future products based on people's experience through engagement with
diegetic prototypes?
To begin, it needs to identify and understand future-oriented design practices and explore research methodologies for rendering immersive and critical future experiences. It is also required to find out how could future-oriented designs be adapt and apply to provide future experiences and possible methods to integrate experience-based insights into products.
To answer questions, this research considered some existing research methodologies. (Figure 5) The overall structure of the research follows Research through Design(RTD) process. RtD is a design-driven research approach that uses designed objects as stimuli to gain research data and new findings. In the beginning, desk research for future changes will be conducted. Multiple future scenarios would be built. Based on the scenarios, diegetic prototypes will be designed and objectified. Those diegetic prototypes will be presented to the public so that people can experience and be observed. The setting could include an exhibition, dramatized media, focus group, and more. Feedback and reactions would be analyzed and discussed to generate insights. An extended process, integration would be applied to reflect any insights into product design ideation/development. In the end, the research will finalize with some results which could be a product or service, or an approach of future-oriented design.
Figure 5
Research Process
Results are expected (Figure 6) - first, provide a space to explore the future experience with diegetic prototypes with scenarios; second, bridging between unknown futures and people to reveal any issues within changes; third, problematizing the latent effects of hidden issues; and last, generating more real-life situated, holistic insights for emerging and future design issues.
Figure 6
Expected Results
This research is expected to have potential impacts on several domains. The future-driven design process could provide a new way to speculate and experience what-might-comes. For industry, the design process could suggest new design opportunities for emerging and future products with more efficiency and a better experience. Lastly, the new design process could contribute to a better understanding of design practice for futures in the design education field.