Speculative design and collective imagination
In our uncertain global times the future has never felt so relevant. And, as organisations rapidly try to respond to what they know now, they must understand the impact they are having on tomorrow.
This article highlights three ways speculative design is democratising the design of our futures from the London Speculative Futures MeetUp.
Speculative design is design that provokes discussion. It’s an imaginative leap into alternative futures that provokes ‘what if?’ questions about what really matters to us. I like to think of it as a sense check. What if our service causes a new behaviour to become mainstream, like renting out your home online? What if our product isn’t needed anymore for reasons like stringent restrictions on travel or maybe because of limitations on renting?
Essentially: what if things were different?
This article isn’t about explaining the growing relevance of speculative design though, there are plenty of other articles, like this one from Isa Kolehmainen, that do it well. This article is about speculative design’s potential for influencing democratic futures design, that is to say design that ensures change is based on collective imaginations and not driven by the few.
See, where user-centred design has been the focus for efficiently improving experiences for the many, a broader responsibility to those affected outside of the ‘user’ narrative has been missed.
This is where I believe principles from speculative design can be (and are being) used to design inclusive futures: for us all and not for the generic user profile. The following shows how speculative design is democratising the design of our future, captured from the London Speculative Futures meet up on February 25th.
1. Designing narratives for change
The core of speculative design has and always will be how it promotes discussion of values and behaviours through change. By designing alternative narratives that encourage change, we can help people construct compasses, rather than maps, for exploring the potential of future values and behaviours.
Design studio and research lab Superflux constructs compasses using speculative design just like this. They create powerful lenses with design experiments like Mitigation of Shock to see the implications of change in the future and better understand it. By fabricating future experiences like this, and understanding the potential impact, they argue that they can help transform decision making today to create inclusive futures.
For organisations to embrace principles like this, they need to start acknowledging that the future is not a fixed destination, but a constantly shifting and unfolding space of different potential. In short, it’s about being comfortable in an uncomfortable approach to problem solving.
2. Capturing community perspectives
Pure, unadulterated speculative design is rooted in provoking discussions for change. As already mentioned, it’s core is how it promotes discussion of values and behaviours through change. However, I personally love to think the real beauty is in the potential of it being used a tool to create collaborative narratives. Narratives that don’t come from designers or people ‘at the table’ but from collections of real people in ‘the wild’ and the stories they have to tell.
“Imagination is a powerful tool but collective imaginations are the first step to social change.” — Romy Nehme
Still Not Quite, a fictional online marketplace for objects and ideas from plausible futures uses objects as a form of storytelling to engage the broader public. They believe that objects innately carry stories with them. So, by challenging communities with alternative futures, they can capture how these objects change with communities perspectives to better understand them.
By crafting narratives from social or community perspectives we can capture stories about the things that really matter, gather feedback, and then design for them together.— however mundane.
Central to reaching this potential, though, is understanding that every individual experiences their world differently, based on their personal, geographic, social, and economic standing in the world. Necessarily, it’s not our place to understand one individual or community but always approach design from a shifting society centred perspective.
3. Design as a facilitator
From an academic or pure speculative design point of view, it can be frustrating to use speculative design and design fiction synonymously. Dunne and Raby’s belief that speculative design is necessarily anti-corporate because it questions the status quo will always hold true.
But from an industry perspective, where we have the opportunity to create products that drive change through use, it’s really fascinating that some principles from speculative design can become mainstream.
I believe that design’s role in this can be a differentiator for organisations looking to ask future-facing questions. Not as a method for designers to create corporate futures but as a method for designers to become the facilitators of communities shaping their collective and democratic futures.
Thanks for reading 🥳 Let’s talk. Catch me on Linkedin or at jackstrachan.co.
