Design fictions

This studio provides participants with an opportunity to engage in a hands-on exploration of the use of "design fictions" as a strategy for producing physical artifacts. The idea of design fictions blurs the boundaries between traditional design practices and narrative explorations of potential futures. If the goal of design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, then the goal of design fiction is to use speculations, metaphors, and explorations of desired futurities to explicate and inform material design practices. Participants will have a chance to discuss these ideas, as well as to design and build their own "diegetic prototypes" out of materials sourced from local antique shops, thrift stores, and other nearby sources of inspiration. Through this hands-on exploration of the constraints and affordances of fictional scenarios and scavenged materials, we hope to collectively explore a compelling new design space for tangibles

Structuring and engaging, The roles of design fiction in a co-design workshop

Design fictions present speculative scenarios and provocative stories to create space for discussion and reflection. Through building a story world, the design fictions provide a space for prototyping and presenting new ideas and perspectives. This thesis analyses design fictions as a workshop method, using a co-design workshop, 2030 - An Ecosystem Odyssey, as a case study. The research question is exploring what kind of roles design fictions serve in a workshop, in the tasks and in the participant discussion. The topic is approached from two perspectives, from the organiser point of view focusing on the process of planning and running the workshop and from the participant point of view on the tasks and discussions in the workshop. Through the analysis of the case study, ten roles of design fictions were recognised. For the organisers, the design fictions are a way to present perspectives and topics that they see relevant in the workshop. The design fictions are also a way to promote the workshop. In the tasks the design fictions can set the participant roles, structure and facilitate the tasks and be a part of the whole workshop storyline. For the participants, the design fictions are a starting point into the task and a platform presenting embedded values and ideas. The design fictions introduce different perspectives and can help to imagine the future in somewhat concrete terms. They also play a role in creating connections between the tasks and the workshop goals. The roles can be divided into three bigger groups that summarise the roles that design fictions can serve: setting the scene, structuring the tasks and embedding values. With those groups of roles, the design fictions contribute in building the workshop. The workshop is part of DIMECC Design for Value program involving companies from maritime and manufacturing industries and research partners. The project brings the workshop and the use of design fictions as a method to business-to-business context

Fictional Game Elements: Critical Perspectives on Gamification Design

Gamification has been widely accepted in the HCI community in the last few years. However, the current debate is focused on its short-term consequences, such as effectiveness and usefulness, while its side-effects, long-term criticalities and systemic impacts are rarely raised. This workshop will explore the gamification design space from a critical perspective, by using design fictions to help researchers reflect on the long-term consequences of their designs

Game vaporware as design fictions

In this research we examine games, and games hardware, that can be classed as ‘Vaporware’. More specifically software that was never written, or hardware that was never built, and consequently no one ever played. In particular we are considering such vaporware as examples of ‘Design Fiction’ as they once represented speculative visions of the future based on emerging technology. Vaporware is a term generally used to describe products that are announced to the general public but are never actually manufactured. Whereas design fiction is a term used to describe plausible ‘diegetic prototypes’ that are built, or suggested, to create an opportunity for discourse about possible technological futures. Whilst it could be argued vaporware games are simply failed products that were justifiably scrapped before joining the long lists of come-to-nothing games and consoles, by reviewing examples we offer an alternative view that they can serve as objects of discourse for exposing the potential futures of video games and thus could be considered in terms of design fiction. To add further weight to the argument that games can be useful as design fictions we then consider “Game of Drones”, an example of a design fiction that pivots around a game element, to illustrate how the deliberate use of design fiction can stimulate discourse around game futures (in this case the growing promotion of ‘gamified’ services as means of engaging users). Whilst the notion of designing games that will never be built may seem paradoxical in relation to the Games industry’s predominantly commercial aims, we believe that the deliberate adoption of design fiction as a practice within game design would facilitate the emergence of meaningful discussions around future gaming without the frustrations induced by vaporware

Materializing design fictions for metaverse services

As the state-of-the-art stands, our knowledge of designing Metaverse platforms is limited. In this paper we propose that design fictions are the first form of prototyping and explore how ‘materializing’ a design fiction can help cement or refute assumptions that drive the development of a software-based system toward a first Minimum Viable Product. Our context is a platform for trading music memorabilia in the Metaverse, integrating content sitting across archives, record labels, publishers, and private collections in an immersive and accessible manner. The design fiction provided both a means of exploring the businessassumptions of our industry partner and co-creating an experience of value to its intended audience. As key outcomes, the approach was of value in shapingbusiness assumptions, developing an enhanced understanding of the audience and allowing them to cocreate, shaping technology needs and identifying partners necessary for the development

Alternate endings: using fiction to explore design futures

Design research and practice within HCI is inherently oriented toward the future. However, the vision of the future described by HCI researchers and practitioners is typically utility-driven and focuses on the short term. It rarely acknowledges the potentially complex social and psychological long-term consequences of the technology artefacts produced. Thus, it has the potential to unintentionally cause real harm. Drawing on scholarship that investigates the link between fiction and design, this workshop will explore “alternate endings” to contemporary HCI papers. Attendees will use fictional narratives to envision long-term consequences of contemporary HCI projects, as a means for engaging the CHI community in a consideration of the values and implications of interactive technology

Alternative Presents and Speculative Futures: Designing fictions through the extrapolation and evasion of product lineages.

The core question addressed by this invited keynote and conference paper is how fictions are designed to negotiate, critique and realise the multiplicity of possible new technological futures. Focusing on methods, processes and strategies the presentation initially describes how things/technologies become products, employing the perspective of domestication to describe the transition from extraordinary to everyday. This development suggests a product history, a traceable lineage that goes back through generations, each one a small iteration of the previous. By modelling this lineage, design fictions can do two things: 1. Project current emerging technological development to create Speculative Futures: hypothetical products of tomorrow. 2. Break free of the lineage to speculate on Alternative Presents. These fictions effectively act as cultural litmus paper, either offering vignettes of how it might be to live with the technology in question or challenging contemporary applications of technology through demonstrable alternatives. The presentation focused on how these two types of fiction are created, how they differ from science fiction, other modes of future thinking and technological critique - more specifically how both methodologies utilise designed artefacts. What informs the development, aesthetics, behaviour, interactions and function of these objects? Once created, how and where do they operate? How can we gauge and understand their impact and meaning? As a consequence of the presentation Auger was invited to run workshops and projects in Basel (Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst) and HEAD (Haute école d’art et de design), Geneva and is advising on the design of a new masters programme at the Basel Hochschule

Design fictions:a tool for debating societal, legal and ethical aspects of personal and pervasive health systems

The potential benefits offered by health-related technologies are counterpoised by the societal, legal and ethical challenges concomitant with the pervasive monitoring of people necessitated by such technological interventions. Through the ProtoPolicy research project we explored the production and use of design fictions as a tool for debating the societal, legal and ethical dimensions of personal health systems. Two design fictions were co-created and tested in a series of design workshops with community groups based in Lancashire and Cornwall, UK. A thematic analysis of a debate among older people from the Lancaster group on the Smart Object Therapist (SOT) design fiction highlighted societal and ethical issues relevant to personal health system design. We conclude that ethics like ‘usability’ may be usefully based on engagement with directly or indirectly implicated publics and should not be designed into innovation by experts alone