design futures through design fiction

Design Futures through Design FictionProfessor Paul Coulton

Chair of Speculative and Game Design, Lancaster University, UK

@ProfTriviality

Research PracticeR r

Research into Design Research through Design Research for Design

Process Artifact

New Knowledge

research questions emerge from context and criteria

The What If?

Bel GeddesFuturama 1939

Vapour Fiction

VapourwareVaporware is a term

commonly used to describe software and hardware

that’s is announced, and sometimes marketed, but never actually produced

ATARII 2700

Radical Design

Continuous MonumentSuperstudio

Radical Design

Archigram

Future

Present FutureTime

Probable Plausible Possible

Josepth Voros

Impossible - based on current scientific knowledge

Possible

Present FutureTime

Probable - likely to happen

Plausible - could happen

Possible - might happen

Future

Critical Design

Present FutureTime

Probable Plausible PossiblePreferable

Preferable to who?

PREFERABLE SHOULD BE A QUESTION WE ASK OURSELVES NOT SIMPLY THE AIM

Speculative Design

Auger

use fiction no commercial constraints

prototype driven

Speculative Design

use fiction no commercial constraints

prototype driven irreverant

Auger Coulton

Design Fiction“deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to

suspend disbelief about change... It means you’re thinking very seriously

about potential objects and services and try to get people to concentrate on those – rather than entire worlds or

geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells

worlds rather than stories”

Bruce Sterling

Design Fiction“deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change... It means you’re thinking very seriously

about potential objects and services and try to get people to concentrate on those – rather than entire worlds or

geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells

worlds rather than stories”

Bruce Sterling

Diegesis

mimesis and diegesis describe ways of presenting a story. In mimesis, the story is acted out. In diegesis, the story is narrated. Mimesis is show. Diegesis is tell.

Diegetic Prototypes

“have a major rhetorical advantage even over true prototypes: in the fictional world – what film scholars refer to as diegesis – as these technologies exist as real objects that function properly and that people can actually use.” Kirby 2009

Present

adapted from James Auger

Present

Future

Domestication

EmergingTechnology

Speculative FuturesDesign FictionsVapour Fiction

Past

���

Speculative FuturesDesign Fictions

Vapourware

Alternate Presentsor Lost Futures

Present

Present

History, Reality,and Fiction

Past

Future

Gonzatto, R. F., van Amstel, F. M., Merkle, L. E., & Hartmann, T. (2013). The ideology of the future in design fictions. Digital creativity, 24(1), 36-45.

Past

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future”

Marshall Mcluhan

Multiple Realities

PresentFuture

Time

Plausible

Possible

Past

Plausible

Possible

Point of Focus

Design Fiction“So a design fiction is

(1) something that creates a fictional world, (2) has something being prototyped within that fictional world, (3) does so in

order to create a discursive space.” “Although this definition appears straightforward, complexity

arrives when we consider what something may be”

Lindley and Coulton

Near Future Domestication

World Building

In response to the recent European Directive the UK government sanctioned the use of drones by commercial providers subject to pilots holding an approved Drone Pilot Proficiency Certificate (DPPC). As the government anticipated the main use has been in providing services to local authorities that aid in the enforcement of local by-laws. Whilst many commercial providers have followed the traditional path of employing dedicated enforcement officers to pilot the drones, in this paper we present on-going research that 'gamifies' the enforcment activities to allow members of the local community to act as enforcement officers. In particular we have worked with retired members of the police and armed services as drone pilots in relation to the enforcement of by-laws relating to parking offences and dog fouling in a small UK city. The initial results indicate that not only does this age group find the game-like activity enjoyable they feel that they are providing an important service to their community.

World Building

World Building

Voigt-Kampff A MACHINE FROM THE FUTURE

World Building

World Building

World Building

World Building

Suspend Disbelief

allowing players to consider alternate presents and plausible futures

Games as Speculative Design

Critical Games

thus far the focus of the critical games created has primarily

been either: critiques of current events or practices; or critiques

of games themselves

Critical Games

Phone Story - Mollie Industria giant joystick - Mary Flanagan

Persuading through Games

Persuasive TechnologyProcedural Rhetoric(Gamification) VS Persuasive Games

liminal liminoid

Persuasive Technology

B.J Fogg

Captology - reduce a problem so that it can be addressed through the promotion of minor behavioural change for easily understood and uncontroversial goals.

Persuasive Technology

HighAbility

LowAbility

HighMotivation

LowMotivation

TargetBehaviour

Desire

d Traje

ctory

of Use

rs

FACILITATOR

SPARK

SIGNAL

SIGNALThe Facilitator is a trigger

that also makes the desired behaviour easier

to perform.

The Signal is a trigger that identifies an appropriate time to perform a

particular behaviour for those already motivated to perform that behaviour.

The Spark is a trigger that provides the initial

inspiration to change behaviour.

B.J Fogg

Rhetoric

Pathos(empathy)

Ethos(credibility)

Logos(logic)

CONTEXT

Aristottle

Logos - would utilise facts, statistics, analogies, and

logical reasoning.

Ethos - would draw upon credibility, reliability, trustworthiness and

fairness.

Pathos - would appeal to our emotions and draw

upon feelings of fairness, love, pity, or even greed,

lust, or revenge.

Rhetoric of Design

Rhetor Audience

Speech

Intent

Expectations

Rhetoric

Graphic Designer Audience

Image

Inte

ntExpectations

Visual Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Designer Users

Product

Inte

ntExpectations

Design as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Richard Buchanan

Game

Game Designer Player

Rule

sInteraction

Game Design as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Designthe basic representational mode of videogames is “procedurality”, enacted through rule- based representations and interactions and, when used to reveal processes or concepts of another system, present the player with a procedural rhetoric

Ian Bogost

Interactive System

Interaction Designer User

Syst

em L

ogic Interaction

Interactive Systems as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Coulton

Developing In-Game Rhetoric

Mudlark

Climate Change

Weather

Flow

Storage

Scale

Charles and Ray Eames Powers of 10

COLD SUN

Games as Speculative Design Should:

Enable a Plurality of Futures

Be Plausible

Enable both Mimesis and Diegesis

Be Iterative

Not Resort to Reductionism

Perpetual Beta

Questions

Banksy