Design Fiction Research Articles

“Design fiction” skirts reality to provoke discussion and debate

In October 2015, researchers presented an unusual paper at a computer science conference in London. The paper described the promising results of a pilot project in which a local community used surveillance drones to enforce car parking restrictions and to identify dog owners who failed to clean up after their pets. Controlled by four elderly retirees, the drones buzzed around the city and directed council officials on the ground (1). To prompt discussion about the ethics of using drones for surveillance, researchers described a fanciful pilot project in which a local community used surveillance drones to enforce car parking restrictions. It’s one example of design fiction. Image credit: Shutterstock/Alex Yuzhakov. The paper and its accompanying video generated lively discussion about the ethics and regulation of drone use among delegates at the CHI PLAY conference. But there was a catch: The paper, the video, and the pilot scheme were fictional, as the researchers admitted at the end of both the paper and the presentation. The researchers had invented the scenario as a way to focus attention on how drone technology—a topic of study for some of the people in the room—could shape and change society. The team thought that presenting the idea as if it were real—for example, showing familiar street signs in the video warning drivers about a drone-controlled zone—would provoke discussion about a future in which such use of technology was considered mundane. The practice is called design fiction. Originally used in product design, the approach is finding increasing use in scientific and medical fields as a way to explore the possible consequences of technological development. These projects are not so much experiments designed to test a hypothesis as they are orchestrated scenarios designed to provoke forward-thinking discussion and debate. From climate science and artificial intelligence to wearable …

Made-Up Rubbish: Design Fiction as a Tool for Participatory Internet of Things Research

As Internet of Things (IoT) technologies become embedded in public infrastructure, it is important that we consider how they may introduce new challenges in areas such as privacy and governance. Public technology implementations can be more democratically developed by facilitating citizen participation during the design process, but this can be challenging. This work demonstrates a novel method for participatory research considering the privacy implications of IoT deployments in public spaces, through the use of worldbuilding design fictions. Using three fictional contexts and their associated tangible design fiction objects, we report on findings to inform transparency and governance in public space IoT deployments.

Design of smart objects of fear with a taxonomy of factors affecting the user experience of exposure therapy systems for small-animal phobias

In vivo exposure therapy (IVET) is the treatment of choice for specific phobias, including animal phobia. Recently virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) and Augmented reality exposure therapy (ARET) have been presented and validated as suitable tools, however, to the best of our knowledge, no other work has identified nor provided an explicit classification or taxonomy to classify, compare and even inform the design of these kind of systems. In this work we propose a taxonomy of feedback factors that affect the experience of use of mixed reality systems for small-animal phobias. The taxonomy comprises feedback factors in three categories, namely realism, interaction, and intensity; while considering: auditory, haptic and visual dimensions for each. To illustrate this taxonomy in use, we conducted a survey to compare mixed reality applications for small-animal phobias, analysing their features according to the factors proposed in the taxonomy. In addition, we developed the concept of smart objects of fear by means of a design fiction world. In this world, in addition to IVET, VRET and ARET, where the objects of fear are either real (in the former) or virtual (in the two later), we envision a new kind of mixed reality therapy, where the objects of fear are represented using context-aware smart objects, capable of inferring the emotional state of the patient, and of adapting their behavior to improve the system’s response during the therapy; which in turn, may enrich the patient’s therapy experience. We validated the perceived usability of this design fiction world with an expert in exposure therapy for small-animal phobias, whom perceived it as useful and correct. Finally, we show how the use of the taxonomy allowed us to discuss the features of the proposed future technologies in terms of how they furnish each of the factors of the taxonomy.

Who trusts in the smart city? Transparency, governance, and the Internet of Things

AbstractInternet of Things (IoT) devices such as connected sensors are increasingly being used in the public sector, often deployed and collecting data in public spaces. A theme commonly seen in the rhetoric surrounding public space IoT initiatives is empowerment, and these deployments are broadly perceived as beneficial by policy makers. However, such technology presents new governance challenges. It is important to ask who is empowered and who benefits, and we must ensure that such technological interventions follow democratic principles and are trusted by citizens. In this paper, we investigate how risk, transparency, and data governance require careful consideration in this domain, describing work which investigates how these combine to form components of trusted IoT ecosystems. This includes an overview of the landscape of public space IoT deployments, consideration of how they may often be subsumed in idealized smart city focused rhetoric, and discussion of how methodologies such as design fiction in community settings can uncover potential risks and concerns. Our findings suggest that agency, value and intent associated with IoT systems are key components that must be made transparent, particularly when multiple actors and stakeholders are involved. We suggest that good governance requires consideration of these systems in their entirety, throughout the full planning, implementation, and evaluation process, and in consultation with multiple stakeholders who are impacted, including the public. To achieve this effectively, we argue for transparency at the device and system level, which may require legislative change.

The Social Mile - How (Psychosocial) ICT can Help to Promote Resocialization and to Overcome Prison

There is currently uncertainty in the research community as to how ICT can and should be designed in such a way that it can be convincingly integrated into the everyday lives of prison inmates. In this paper, we discuss a design fiction that closes this research gap. The descriptions and results of the study are purely fictitious. Excluded is the State of the Art as well as the description of the legal situation of prisons in Germany. The analysis of the fictional study data designed here thus refers to the real world in order to derive ethical guidelines and draw practical conclusions. It is our intention to use these results as a possible basis for further research. The paper presents results of an explorative study dealing with the design, development and evaluation of an AI-based Smart Mirror System, Prison AI 2.0, in a German prison. Prison AI 2.0 was developed for daily use and voluntarily tested by eight prisoners over a period of 12 months to gain insight into their individual and social impact, with an emphasis on its ability to actively support rehabilitation. Based on qualitative data, our findings suggest that intelligent AI-based devices can actually help promote such an outcome. Our results also confirm the valuable impact of (Psychosocial) ICT on the psychological, social and individual aspects of prison life, and in particular how prisoners used the Smart Mirror system to improve and maintain their cognitive, mental and physical state and to restore social interactions with the outside world. With the presentation of these results we want to initiate discussions about the use of ICT by prisoners in closed prisons in order to identify opportunities and risks.

Ethical Considerations for Research Involving (Speculative) Public Data

As the process of creating and sharing data about ourselves becomes more prevalent, researchers have access to increasingly rich data about human behavior. Framed as a fictional paper published at some point in the not-so-distant future, this design fiction draws from current inquiry and debate into the ethics of using public data for research, and speculatively extends this conversation into even more robust and more personal data that could exist when we design new technologies in the future. By looking to how the precedents of today might impact the practices of tomorrow, we can consider how we might design policies, ethical guidelines, and technologies that are forward-thinking.

Agency in the Smart Home of the Future

Agency in the Smart Home of the Future is a short documentary film about a unique design fiction social experiment. Comprised mostly of trace evidence video footage recorded by field researchers on their smart phones, the film takes audiences directly into the reflexive lived experience of four Australian households, each of whom have had their real homes transformed into fully functional smart homes. Smart speakers, smart TVs, smart fridges, robo vacs, sensor lighting, etcetera! is installed into their homes as a gestalt to generate a paradigmatic shift in their everyday living and interactions. In the process, we discover how human agency and structure reproduce in this potential living environment of the future.

Design fictions for learning: A method for supporting students in reflecting on technology in Human-Computer Interaction courses

Design fictions describe non-existing prototype devices and services, encouraging reflection on technology matters. However, until now most of the fictional design work has been carried out either by “experts” to foster critical thinking within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community, or by user groups to mostly define requirements for creating novel devices. In this article, we aim to use design fictions as a method for supporting students in thinking of the assumptions and consequences of emerging technologies. We report a multi-year experience in using fictional design in the context of academic education to show that such method can be employed to both teach fundamental elements of technology design and HCI and, at the same time, elicit a critical thinking, helping students reflect on the ramifications of their creations and their role as designers. We discuss the methodological implications, pointing out the opportunities this method opens as well as its weaknesses. Finally, we propose a series of methodological suggestions addressed to facilitate the use of design fictions as a “tool for reflection.”

Design, development and evaluation of a human-computer trust scale

ABSTRACTNew technologies, data, and algorithms impact nearly every aspect of daily life. Unfortunately, many of these algorithms operate like black boxes and cannot explain their results even to their programmers, let alone to end-users. As more and more tasks get delegated to such intelligent systems and the nature of user interactions with them becomes increasingly complex, it is important to understand the amount of trust that a user is willing to place on such systems. However, attempts at quantifying trust have either been limited in their scope or not empirically thorough. To address this, we build on prior work which empirically modelled trust in user-technology interactions and describe the development and evolution of a human computer trust scale. We present results of two studies (N=118 & N=183) which were undertaken to assess the reliability and validity of the proposed scale. Our study contributes to the literature by (a) developing a multi-dimensional scale to assess user trust in HCI and (b) being the first study to use the concept of design fiction and future scenarios to study trust.

Critical Design as a Resource. Adopting the Critical Mind-Set

In this paper Critical design is regarded as a source of knowledge, which can benefit also other forms of design, if adopted by the designer as part of a critical mind-set. The focus is mainly on the enlightening potential of the Critical design attitude, which allows to critically revise one's assumptions. The author's intention is to increase the visibility of Critical design and to promote its inclusion into more traditional industrial design curricula both as a theory and practice. The author argues that studying existing Critical design projects can have an emancipating effect on the designers’ professional approach. Aspects of Critical design that are proposed as valuable include the awareness of ideological constructs and the capability to critically analyse them in order to avoid biased designs; understanding of the advancement of futures and the design's potential of steering it; principles of design fiction; and a deliberate use of design product as means of communication.

기술의 사회적 가치와 의미를 탐색하는 매개로서 디자인 픽션

기술의 사회적 가치와 의미를 탐색하는 매개로서 디자인 픽션

Co-Imagining the Futures of Implementation Precision Medicine Using Scenario Analysis and Design Fiction.

Precision medicine has a long history dating to the early 20th century when inquiries into the biochemical basis of large person-to-person variations in susceptibility to human diseases and response to medicines had first begun. Yet, personalized medicine in the 21st century is far from being "future-proof." Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and changing human values and preferences, call for anticipatory, rather than reactive, approaches to the governance of precision medicine futures. In this context, anticipatory governance is an innovative approach to understanding technology and innovation futures. Anticipatory governance and its corollary anticipatory ethics on emerging technologies require interdisciplinary collaboration and communication to cultivate shared language, imagination, and orientation toward plausible sociotechnical innovation trajectories. This study reports, for the first time in the literature to the best of our knowledge, an anticipatory governance experiment on "implementation precision medicine (IPM)" using scenario analysis and design fiction. Participants were undergraduate students and experts who collaboratively imagined the plausible futures of precision medicine. Given the long history of the precision medicine field, and recent calls for translating big data to real-life clinical applications, implementation was chosen as a key focus area of precision medicine futures. We report here several plausible future innovation scenarios of interest to precision medicine scientists and engineers and researchers in the fields of emerging technology governance, responsible innovation, and social studies of science. Of importance, we found that the playful quality of the design fiction methodology and the pedagogical orientation facilitated by undergraduate student involvement created an engaging creative safe space to build transdisciplinary dialog examining the social and anticipatory ethics dimensions of IPM. Demonstrating the possibilities of such cross-disciplinary dialog and differential expertise, this article is conceptualized and coauthored by all participants further attesting to the importance of co-designing and co-imagining innovation futures in IPM.

Applying Design Fiction in Primary Schools to Explore Environmental Challenges

This paper presents a case study describing the use of design fiction in a cross-curricular project with four classes across two primary schools in inner-city Sheffield. The project combined elements of a Mantle of the Expert dramatic- inquiry approach with design thinking and design fiction, to explore the world of the honey bee. We worked with the schools and children during half a term, leading them through a set of activities (including drama, design, creative writing, and 3D prototyping) to enable the children to discover and understand the threats facing bees, beekeeping, pollination, and the global environmental ramifications of a world without bees. This paper describes the approach adopted and the created design fictions. We discuss the value and limitations of our approach and conclude by offering suggestions for researchers and teachers wishing to engage young people with complex problem spaces.

Social Design Fiction. New Methods for the Design of Emerging Technology.

There is no shortage of Emerging Technologies all vying for our attention; a recent example of this is 3D Printing. However, a great deal of this technology fails to deliver on its potential. The implications of these technologies on our everyday lives are often very difficult to envision and even more difficult to predict, so the difficult questions surrounding social adoption and the domestication of these technologies are often absent from the discussion. We describe new design methodologies that seek to resolve this issue and discuss existing studies in the ‘real world’, to highlight the key challenges and opportunities for this method. We then describe the findings of two workshops, to discover how the public envisage they will engage with 3D Printing technology in the future. Ultimately, this paper highlights how Design Fiction can contribute to resolving key social challenges associated with the widespread adoption and exploitation of emerging technology.

Spimes Not Things. Creating A Design Manifesto For A Sustainable Internet of Things

The rhetoric that surrounds the Internet of Things (IoT) contends it will bring about utopian transformative change throughout society, particularly in regards to sustainability. Little discourse however, recognises the intrinsically unsustainable nature of IoT devices themselves. Under a facade of innovation, the IoT is a breeding ground for superfluous, novelty ‘gizmo’ products whose design incorporates environmentally damaging modes of manufacture, consumption and disposal. To bring attention to this growing unsustainable design culture, we have produced a manifesto entitled Spimes Not Things: A Design Manifesto for A Sustainable Internet of Things. It is the synthesis of a practice-led research project which explores Sterling’s spimes concept using Design Fiction methods, as part of a Research through Design approach. This paper outlines the manifesto’s creation, its theoretical foundations and its intentions. The manifesto is the first step towards the reframing of design practices that will contribute to a more sustainable IoT product paradigm.

Rescuing Epistemic Objects from Speculative Design

This article explores the role of epistemic objects in speculative design, proposing an overview that goes from the origins of this practice in the ‘90s to its consolidation as a research method, through the emergence of design fiction in the last decade. In considering different critical accounts and the limits to this practice pointed out in recent years, it seeks to rescue and analyze the role of diegetic prototypes as research sites. This paper will argue that prototypes are a possible embodiment of what Rheinberger calls ‘epistemic objects’ or ‘epistemic things’. Conceived as such, these prototypes allow us for generation of knowledge by designing and to revisit the experimental character of a method that leads us to explore and materialize what we presently do not know.

Co-creating and Assessing Future Wellbeing Technology Using Design Fiction

In this article, we present our research using design fiction to explore future wellbeing technologies for older adults. “For Good Times and Bad Times” is a design fiction representing a range of emotional, qualitative, and functional goals associated with wellbeing health technology. We invited a small cohort of experts to participate in a wearable monitoring device co-creation session, and then invited older-aged participants to review and reflect on a design fiction crafted from the experts’ findings and a set of psychological needs and values that have been associated with wearable health devices. The results offer insight into the future of wellbeing monitoring technology, and demonstrate the power design fiction has to communicate and generate deep discussions on the psychological, cultural, and social implications of using technologies that mediate complex personal experiences. We discuss the challenges associated with creating and using design fiction in research with older adults, and the potential of fiction to shift perspectives and elicit prospective outcomes of using future technologies.

The wardrobe as a system: exploring clothing consumption through design fiction

This study offers a new perspective on clothing consumption by uncovering the systemic nature of the wardrobe. The research builds on systems theory and aims at drawing a map of the wardrobe as a system with particular structure and behaviour. By co-designing fictional 'smart wardrobe' services with experts and discussing these services with wardrobe users, we identify characteristics of wardrobe structure and behaviour that give input for a preliminary wardrobe map. Lastly, the wardrobe map provides a basis for discussing sustainable design approaches aimed at reducing clothing demand, in the context of growing clothing production volume and its associated environmental impacts.

The wardrobe as a system: exploring clothing consumption through design fiction

The wardrobe as a system: exploring clothing consumption through design fiction

Designers as fans: Bottom-up online explorations of new technology concepts as a genre of design fan fictions

This paper explores the intersection between the participatory culture mechanism of fan fiction and the emerging trend of user-generated design fiction scenarios, exploring new technological design ideas. We propose this intersection is an under-appreciated form of online participation, exploring the potential of new digital technologies as ‘design fan fictions’. Online users launch small fictional scenarios depicting their personal visions or interpretations of specific genres of technologies. This form of bottom-up exploration can be a valuable resource for design, informed by the most dedicated ‘fans’ within technological discourse.