“What if?”: Understanding Speculative Design
Predicting the future is an exercise in futility. Time and again visionaries and hack prophets have predicted the end times or some disaster and time again it has been proven false. Now with speculative and critical design it seems that designers have taken up the mantle of fortune tellers, perhaps with a more attractive vision of doom and demise. Yet speculative designers would counter by saying that they are not in the business of prediction but asking “what if?” They are less interested in advocating for a future, rather to posit what could be as a means of debate through design. Understanding speculative design’s stated aims helps towards understanding its impact. This also allows a proper criticism of critical and speculative design.
Some of the main voices in critical and speculative design are Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby in collaboration, Matt Malpass, and Cameron Tonkinwise. These provide the context and direction for critical design from Dunne and Raby effectively creating a Speculative design manifesto in Speculative Everything, Malpass in helping to define the differences in practise with Critical Design in Context, and Tonkinwise with his criticisms of Speculative Everything and speculative design practise. To understand better the validity of speculative design first we need a definition, some criticism and examples of speculative design in practise.
What is critical design?
Critical design is a sub set of design practice which aims to question and interrogate the way the world functions and where it is headed through the means of discourse. Typically a designed object is made, usually not with the intention of being functional but instead to act as a prompt for discussion. This is the designs ‘function’. Matt Malpass clearly lays out the criticisms of critical design and how they are largely flawed owing to a simple definition of function, the modernist definition. Malpass lays out a number of different meanings for the use of function as a criticism to show how many are wrongly interpreting critical design. While critical design is largely a form of product design it is done so typically outside of market constraints, and usually in academia. This allows for much more freedom to create and speculate, resulting in designs which aren’t necessarily meant to be produced, but which take into account the industrial design processes and methods. The main purpose of critical design is to ask and raise questions, without advocating for a specific answer, but instead to leave the dissemination down to the public and people of influence;
“Although critical designers do not suggest what is the preferable future according to them; they encourage the society to reflect on it.”
Speculative Design
The categories of critical design are a little confusing. Malpass lays out his taxonomy of critical design practises by including associative, speculative, and critical design as distinct elements. The main focus here is speculative design. Critical design is focused on the present and current design and social trends. Speculative design is more concerned with new tech and science and with exploring the future implications of those technologies. The aim of speculative design is to create discourse about how the “present is futuring” and to explore the implications of different technologies and science. Speculative design is concerned with the future, but also with different presents, or alternate histories and can deal with a world with different political situations, and the technological outcomes of these. Speculative designers do not to advocate for any of those different options but use it as a thought experiment to posit what could be.
This allows for speculative designers to explore the potential implications of the new technologies and sciences. They do this by putting a design, usually a prop, into an everyday context which is then brought to the public to start discussion and debate.
Speculative design and its influence
Satire and ambiguity play a large role in speculative design. Ambiguity of information is deliberately used in the design of the narrative around the object. This allows for peoples curiosity and imagination to flourish. Speculative design is most commonly associated with academic and scientific research and some speculative projects are referenced in academic papers.
As Matt Malpass states:
“Critical Design practice working in this way is being embraced by the sciences and in sociological discourses. In short, this is because facts and solutions end debates and evocative design opens up debates and is a powerful way to question hegemonic thinking.”
By standing outside the market trajectory this acts as a way to envision different futures in the hopes of changing the current world.
In a project for Prophetic Prosthetics called Life Drop, a video was shown to people for them to comment on and discuss. The video depicted the day in the life of someone wearing a hypothetical blood donation prosthetic. Certain situations in the video caused reactions and responses for the participants. The responses were useful in gathering peoples attitudes towards a prosthetic for able bodied people as well as the ethical issues of having people drop off their blood and whether they would want payment or just a social reward. By doing this we can learn how people would respond to the prosthetics and see how people would react to such a system. While this isn’t intended to be put into production the responses and attitudes have been collected for consideration.
A problem with this method of design is that it is meant to pry at the various ideas and issues rather than be a viable product. I would posit that an actual product out in the world would have more impact and create more change, if that is the desired aim of speculative and critical designers. I would agree with Tonkinwise’s criticism that in order to make more of an impact in the world the designers need to work closely with those creating the technology and science. An article by Rowan Page about speculative design and medical implants provides and example of how speculative design can be used. In this context it was used to generate debate and figure out what peoples views of the product were, a bit like market research.
Though this was used to develop a product and shape final outcome and the daily function in the eyes of the users. Page acknowledges the ambitions of speculative design as described by Dunne and Raby in their own research:
“This design practice is directed at usability improvements that will be achieved, not through solving ‘problems,’ but rather, through provoking and encouraging debate within the medical device manufacturer themselves; a debate that is inclusive of users in the formative stages of development.”
This method fits with Tonkinwises criticism of using spec design with those who are creating the technology. Yet on the surface it looks like speculative design in this context is being used in the aims of the market, going against Dunne and Raby’s ideals. It seems too limiting to suggest that speculative designs can’t be used alongside corporations. By actively influencing the shaping of a medical product through debate influenced by speculative designs its possible to see a direct influence in the world which is a result of this field of design. The question then is if critical design is used to work alongside corporation is it still critical? If it wasn’t critical then speculative design methods wouldn’t cause a product or situation to change, which it clearly does in the example of the cochlear implants. Life Drop was useful in generating debate and expanding the definitions of prosthetics, but has little implications in the world at large, yet at least.
Conclusion
The field of speculative design is relatively new as a field in its own right. As such there are little data to pull form and limited writings on the effects of the topic on a larger scale rather than simply to start a conversation. The criticisms of critical and speculative design from Tonkinwise show how there is a distancing between the designer and advocating for a desired outcome as well as a limitation in the actual perceived impact that critical and speculative design can have. The lofty aims and ambitions for speculative design presented by Dunne and Raby provide a starting point for understanding what this field of design aims to accomplish. Malpass gives a more researched account for the differences in practise and Tonkinwise provides some valid criticisms. Life Drop and the Cochlear implants research provide two different ways for speculative design to be used. Life drop is speculative design for prosthetics, without any attachment to a product, whereas Page’s research is clearly used in the development of a real product. The first method is unlikely to generate real change as there is no end goal past debating. The cochlear implant is a clear product and speculative design methods have been used to shape it and the way people use the product. From this its possible to see which method has the potential to create real change in moving towards a more desired future.
Links to References:
Integrating The User Into The Formative Stages of Medical Device Usability Design: A speculative and Collaborative approach. Rowan Page
https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2018.1525830
Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practises. Matt Malpass
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Design-Context-History-Practices/dp/1472575172
Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.
How we intend to future: Review of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, fiction and social dreaming. Cameron Tonkinwise.
https://doi.org/10.2752/144871314X14159818597676
Life Drop Video Fraser McCafferty, Andrew Jackson and Rory Bain
Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative, and Critical Design in Practise
https://doi.org/10.2752/175470813X13705953612200
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