Design Fiction
A futuring and research through design technique, that allows design to ask questions. Design fiction is the process of designing/narrating a fictitious product/concept that combines design, facts and science fiction. It is another method to dream of what could be possible in the near future.
“Design fiction as I am discussing it here is a conflation of design, science fact, and science fiction. It is an amalgamation of practices that together bends the expectations as to what each does on its own and ties them together into something new. It is a way of materializing ideas and speculations without the pragmatic curtailing that often happens when dead weights are fastened to the imagination.”
Nature & context
Futuring, Design Technique
Resources
Exemplars, stationery, notes.
Procedure
Design fiction is a form of speculative design, only difference being in the narrative. It combines design, facts and science fiction to enable dreaming of what could be possible in the near future.
Before: Unlike speculative design that focuses on social issues, design fiction can be used as a futuring method to narrate the design of any product/service. Most important for design fiction is research that informs design as well as exemplars to inspire design decisions.
During: Build a narrative that allows readers to experience and visualize the near future possibilities. Giving attention to details during the description of design, makes the design as realistic as possible.
After: Use research through design technique to infer people's thought process.
Use Case
Class homework involving multi-species ethnography: During exemplar analysis to design for non-human species, it was observed that most of the design were biophilic. As a result, we used Design fiction to write about a dreamy city that is green everywhere, with buildings geographically constructed to use maximum sunlight, covered by self-growing creepers and drones flying around that act as sprinklers to maintain the greens.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Design fiction allows designers to envision designs for the near future. However, during the design process, there are chances of forgetting ground reality and speculating beyond the possible. Which in turn makes the product less appealing in the market as it gets difficult to implement the design.