Design Fiction As A Cool Futures Thinking Approach
What is Futures Thinking?
Futures Thinking is a strategic foresight approach that considers multiple future scenarios to help organizations make better decisions today and create a more desirable tomorrow.
Futures thinking is not about predicting the future. It can be compared to using a map before starting a journey. Just as a map can help you plan a route, anticipate obstacles, and make decisions about how to navigate the terrain.
The difference between Futures Thinking and Design Thinking
Design Thinking and Futures Thinking are two different approaches that designers can use to solve problems and create solutions. While they share some similarities, they have distinct differences in their focus and approach.
Design Thinking (Convergent Approach):
- Refine and converge ideas towards a specific solution.
- It is a human-centered design approach that focuses on identifying and solving specific design problems.
- The goal of Design Thinking is to develop innovative and effective design solutions that meet the needs of users.
Futures Thinking (Divergent Approach):
- It is a strategic foresight approach that explores and imagines multiple possible futures to identify potential opportunities and threats.
- Futures Thinking involves a divergent exploratory approach to develop a broader understanding of the future.
- The goal of Futures Thinking is to develop strategic insights and foresight to inform decision-making in the present.
Design Thinking is focused on identifying and solving specific design problems of today, while Futures Thinking is focused on exploring and imagining multiple possible futures.
By understanding the differences between these two approaches, designers can choose the best approach for a given problem and use them together to create holistic and effective solutions for tomorrow.
Why is Futures Thinking important for Designers?
Futures Thinking empowers designers to proactively shape the future and create meaningful impact. This is done through the key principles of Futures Design:
Imagine things that don’t yet exist
Challenge assumptions
Create shared long-term perspective
Anticipate long term threats and uncertainties
Identify strategic opportunities
The actions listed can help designers to approach problems with a forward-thinking mindset. By imagining things that don’t yet exist and challenging assumptions, designers can identify new possibilities for the future. Creating a shared long-term perspective can help to align stakeholders and make decisions that lead to a desired future outcome. Anticipating long-term threats and uncertainties can help designers to prepare and mitigate potential risks, while identifying strategic opportunities can help to create innovative and effective solutions that meet future needs.
The essential steps to Futures Thinking
There are many Futures Thinking approaches available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. At NOK, we believe that the best approach is the one that works for each company’s specific needs and goals. That’s why we’ve developed a unique approach that combines the most effective methods and tools. Our approach consists of five key steps:
Framing Scoping the project, identifying the main issue and current conditions.
Scanning Investigating signals of change or indicators of potential futures.
Futuring Identifying a baseline and alternative futures
Visioning developing and committing to a preferred future
Backcasting developing the steps needed to achieve that vision and goal
Together, these five steps provide a comprehensive and robust approach to Futures Thinking that can help companies navigate the uncertainty of the future and create actionable outcomes starting today.
Visualizing uncertainty with Futures Cone
A Futures Cone is a visual tool in Futuring that helps to map out and visualize possible future scenarios. It starts from the present at the tip of the cone and widens as you move into the future, representing the increasing number of possibilities and uncertainties as time progresses.
By considering possible future scenarios and backcasting from those scenarios, organizations are prepared for a range of potential futures, rather than just planning for a single, most-likely scenario.
Imagine you are trying to plan an event, but you’re not sure what the weather will be like. So you come up with three different plans: one for a sunny day, one for a rainy day, and one for a snowy day. The Futures Cone is like having those three plans ready, but for your business or organization. It helps you think about and plan for different possible futures, so you can be ready for anything that might happen. By doing this, you can identify potential risks and opportunities, and test different strategies and solutions against those possible futures, to make sure you’re making the best decisions for your organization.
Why so serious?
Feeling overwhelmed by information? You’re on the right track. Futures Thinking is a mentally demanding process, and the outcomes are often focused on (boring) business strategies. At NOK, we believe that designers can push themselves to have more fun with this process. That’s why we experimented with Design Fiction as a Futures Thinking approach.
Design fiction is a creative and imaginative approach that uses fictional stories and prototypes to explore and communicate potential futures to stimulate discussion and debate about their desirability and feasibility.
Design Fiction can also be a powerful tool for businesses as it allows them to explore and test potential future scenarios and products in a safe and cost-effective way. By imagining and creating tangible artifacts of future possibilities, businesses can better understand their potential impact on customers, stakeholders, and the market, and make informed decisions about their future strategy and investments. It can also spark innovation and creativity within teams and help businesses stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing world.
Examples of Design Fiction
Speculative Products
What
Designers create physical or digital prototypes of products that don’t currently exist, but could exist in a hypothetical future.
Why
Address societal or environmental issues, or explore the possibilities of emerging technologies.
How
DIY Surgical Robot: A Low-Cost Open-Source Machine for Self-Performed Keyhole Surgery with a Playstation Controller
Designer Frank Kolkman’s DIY surgical robot project is a speculative project because it is not currently a commercially available product, but rather an exploration of what is possible using existing technology. The project raises critical questions about the ethics and politics of healthcare innovation by challenging the status quo in the medical industry. By hacking 3D printer components to build a low-cost, open-source surgical robot that can be assembled and operated by non-experts, the project explores the potential consequences of DIY medical technology, such as the ethics of individuals performing surgery without proper medical training, and the potential for exacerbating existing social inequalities with unsafe or ineffective low-cost solutions to healthcare. In this way, the project uses design as a tool to explore the potential future of medical technology and its broader social implications.
Future Scenarios
What
Designers create narratives or scenarios that describe a future world or situation.
Why
These scenarios can be used to explore the implications of current trends, or to help people envision different futures.
How
Black Mirror
“Striking Vipers,” the first episode of Black Mirror Series 5, is a futures scenario example that explores how technology could impact human sexuality and relationships in the near future. The episode depicts a world where virtual reality gaming allows players to fully immerse themselves in the game world and physically experience the sensations of their avatars. As two childhood friends, Danny and Karl, reconnect through the game, they develop an emotional and sexual relationship, blurring the lines between virtual and real worlds. Danny is married with children, adding a layer of complexity to the dynamics between the two friends as they struggle to reconcile their real-life responsibilities and relationships with their virtual desires. The episode highlights the potential risks and ethical dilemmas of using technology in this way, offering a cautionary glimpse into a possible future where technology has transformed our understanding of intimacy and relationships
Critical Design
What
Designers create provocative or challenging designs that are intended to stimulate discussion or debate.
Why
Critical designs can be used to critique or satirize current societal norms, or to explore the ethical implications of emerging technologies (challenge why or why not).
How
(Im)possible Baby:
(Im)possible Baby challenges the social and ethical implications of emerging reproductive technologies. It presents a fictional fertility clinic where prospective parents can select and customize various traits of their future child, raising ethical questions about the commodification of human life and the impact on human identity and autonomy. The project also presents a scenario where same-sex couples can have children biologically related to them, challenging assumptions and encouraging critical reflection on the potential consequences of these technologies on society and human identity. As a tool for exploring the impact of emerging technologies on society and provoking critical reflection, (Im)possible Baby demonstrates the value of Critical Design in shaping a more just and ethical future.
Insane Today, Obvious Tomorrow
In conclusion, embracing the power of Futures Thinking is essential for any business looking to stay ahead of the curve and create designs that truly matter. NOK’s philosophy of “Insane today, obvious tomorrow” drives us to think beyond the boundaries of what’s currently possible and design for the future we want to see. As we continue to push ourselves with this approach, we look forward to sharing some of our projects that have come to life through Futures Thinking
But for now, we want to hear from you — how have you been using Futures Thinking to shape your business? Let’s work together to design the future we want to see.
NextOfKin Creatives is a strategic design studio comprising a talented family of cross-disciplinary creative thinkers. Our passion lies in conceptualizing innovative designs and crafting unique narratives through our design research and strategy. We are driven to push boundaries and uncover fresh perspectives.
We’d love to partner with you on future casting and design research to reimagine how we can shape experiences together! Get in touch with us at studio@nok.design 👋 Thank you again for reading, and we hope to see you soon in our next article.
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