Perfectly Imperfect

There was this car commercial that ran on TV a couple years back which practically annoyed me. It included an electric car – which was only rising in popularity then – and the brand was showing it off in a couple of well-edited shots. “You can drive the future, today!” stated the person doing the voice over.

The thing that annoyed me about this commercial was that exact statement. Drive the future, today? If I am able to do something that I could do in the future right now, that means I am in the future.

Our current electric cars are not the future. In the future, we’ll have better electric cars. The electric cars we have now are exactly that: what we have now. They are a current reality. Teslas don’t come from the future; they’re made in the current day. If anything, these cars serve as a window, a representation, as to what the future will look like – but they are not from the future itself.

That’s a stark difference to understand. On one hand, you have the idea that something is the future. On the other hand, that thing is simply a sneak peak into the future.

The Smart Home

I did some snooping on YouTube to try and find a video I routinely see every now and then on my Instagram Reels feed. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it, but I did find something similar that piqued my interest. It is a video of a reporter showing off Microsoft’s prediction of a “smart home,” which, according to  comments, was filmed in 1999 (though I can’t verify this claim).

I encourage you to take a brief couple minutes to watch:

What strikes me about this video is that many of the predictions made by Microsoft have come to pass.

• Location Tracking: We are now able to share our locations with others through our phones.
• Talking to a Computer: We are now able to talk to Alexa, Google and Siri.
• Interconnected House: We are now (in more modern houses) able to control lights and temperature through our phones.
• Product-Recognizing Trash Can: Ok, I haven’t seen this in a house yet. But the technology is here. When I recently bought clothes at Zara, all I had to do was dump my shirts in a bin – and the computer was able to instantly detect everything I wanted to purchase without any scanning involved. I won’t be surprised if a trash can ordering groceries becomes an actual thing in a couple years.

Despite some minor things here and there, this video accurately predicts the smart homes and current technology of the modern day. I was pleasantly surprised – whenever we think about future predictions, we tend to think of far-fetched imaginations of floating cars and hoverboards (I’m looking at you, “Back to the Future”). But this video was an actual example of predictions done well.

The things that people imagined back then – the ideas that they dreamt up – are now a reality. They thought about the future, and now, that future is our today. Take a look at this more modern smart home:

In essence, we can predict the future. I’m not talking about a magical crystal ball, but rather, predictions made about the future, with the knowledge of the current.

Someone Thought of This

Everything we have now is a result of something that was done then. A basic idea of this is Steve Jobs wanting to make music portable. So, we got the iPod and iTunes. This paved the way for modern day’s Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and a myriad of other lesser-known music streaming platforms (like Amazon Music… who is using that?!?)

People wanted to go to space, so we built a rocket. Now, Elon Musk is putting us on a plan to go to Mars.

A guy wanted to sell books online. Now, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is dominating the market.

You get the picture: everything that we have is something that someone envisioned in the past. 

How? They noticed patterns and jumped on them.

Two Different Ways

All of the gadgets and gizmos we have now – whether it be as small as our cell phones or as large as a rocket – fall into the area of visual design. (For the purposes of this blog post, I will use the Interaction Design Foundation’s definition of visual design, which encompasses a wide range: “Visual design aims to improve a design’s/product’s aesthetic appeal and usability with suitable images, typography, space, layout and color. Visual design is about more than aesthetics. Designers place elements carefully to create interfaces that optimize user experience and drive conversion.”)

There are two ways visual designers can go about predicting the future. The first is the one I have presented, which is more similar to the area of speculative design. The other is more far-fetched and involves creating a futuristic context, and is called design fiction. Both have to do with designing items in the future, given a certain scenario in mind – sort of like predicting what types of objects would be used and needed in some sort of a future reality, realistic or not. 

These two areas of design have stark and distinct differences. In a Medium article, Davis Levine cites designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby when writing about the contrast between the two areas. “While both design fiction and speculative design operate around the basis of some form of prototype,” Levine writes, “speculative design typically creates objects outside of a defined future context, and doesn’t include an accompanying narrative… for speculative designs that attempt to explore the far future, the designs are situated within a world that is typically not explored or revealed.” 

According to an article on the topics by J. Paul Neely, a London-based designer with expertise in the topic, “they differ slightly in their approach, methodology, and application… In essence, Speculative Design and Design Fiction are not just about predicting or imagining the future; they are about critically engaging with the possibilities of what could be.” Neely provides a comparison of the two different approaches throughout the article; one being Methodologies and Approaches, in which he writes the following:

Speculative Design:

• Creating hypothetical scenarios and artifacts.
• Employing design as a tool for critical thinking.
• Engaging with interdisciplinary fields for a broader perspective.

Design Fiction:

• Crafting detailed narratives and stories set in the future.
• Designing ‘diegetic prototypes’ that exist within these narratives.
• Using storytelling to make abstract concepts tangible and relatable.

While design fiction is more “out there,” speculative design is more relatable. It is grounded in the present and talks about the future in terms of hypothetical scenarios, whereas design fiction creates scenarios out of anything. Neely uses a specific term in his comparison, “diegetic,” which refers to the created scenario in a design fiction situation. According to Levine, “The diegetic prototype in the context of design fiction can understood as a piece of design/object that seemingly exists within the fictional world the audience is viewing.” Unlike speculative design, prototypes in a design fiction can exist only within a determined hypothetical context that verges on the impossible. It is also to note that these prototypes are visual in nature – they can be understood to be tangible products that, should the diegesis come to pass, would be a form of visual design.

Bruce Sterling, a science fiction author, touched on the use of diegetic prototypes in an interview with Slate, written by Tori Bosch. “The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies.”

An overview of design fiction by Near Future Laboratory

The Thing From The Future

Recently, I gave design fiction a try through a little game called “The Thing from the Future. According to Ellen Lupton in Design is Storytelling, “The Thing from the Future, created by Stuart Candy and Jeff Watson, is a game that helps teams and individuals tell stories about the future. Each story consists of an object, a mood, a setting, and a narrative arc… Turning the design process backwards, it uses signals from a distant world to inspire new thinking.” Given the scenarios presented in the cards, my group mates and I would ideate new products that could be used. At the end of each round, we would vote on the “winner.”

In playing four rounds of this game, and ideating many potential prototypes, I discovered that each player needed to provide a context in which our new creations could exist. For example, the card would state that in this scenario, society has completely collapsed. This led us to ask questions, such as why society had collapsed in the first place? And based on our answer to that, we each came up with different products. The results each player would generate was based on the diegesis; the context in which the prototype thrives.

But Why?

Although the game was truly fun to play, it also created a couple of questions in my mind.

• Why would anyone use the method of design fiction in reality? Making prototypes for things that are currently useless doesn’t seem productive.
• What help does it provide in solving real world issues? There are real problems out there, and creating a product for a potential dystopia doesn’t really help anybody.
• Is design fiction – and its sibling of speculative design – even necessary? It’s not practical, and resources placed towards these areas could be better spent on other things.

Bruce Sterling lended his thoughts to Slate, stating that he didn’t know how design fiction could fit into the current world. “What kind of business model would that work in?” asked Sterling. “That’s the question people of our time can engage in. I’m not saying design fiction’s going to resolve our economic problems. On the other hand, if you’re an unemployed designer, it’s one of the coolest things you can do now.” Indeed, design fiction is fun (I learned this myself in playing the game). But is it helpful? Can it solve some of the world’s largest issues, or create tangible ROI for corporations?

Despite these initial thoughts, it turns out the design fiction has more to offer businesses and organizations than what it seems at face value. Mathieu Aguesse and Benoit Decreton, in an article for Harvard Business Review, document how they use processes in design fiction in the business setting – and how it has improved how companies plan and operate with the future in mind. “Design fiction has helped dozens of multinational companies to strategize differently,” they write, “And while creating fictional futures may sound a little quirky, we know that it works.”

Aguesse and Benoit write about how an oil company ended up thinking differently about the impact of their gas stations. “For example, a recent design-fiction project conducted with a major oil and gas company helped identify how to shape a future in which people living in remote areas were less socially isolated. The company decided to repurpose gas stations into places galvanizing community through services such as car sharing hubs, medical centers, delivery platforms, and ghost kitchens.”

We Create The Future That We Live In

Design thinking is necessary because it allows us to see in terms of possibilities. There are many different paths that the future can take, and design fiction helps us to consider them. Referencing the work of Trevor Hancock and Clement Bezold, Ellen Lupton demonstrates the Cone of Plausibility in Design is Storytelling. The cone demonstrates how potential futures are either possible, plausible, preferable, probable, or a complete wildcard. As time progresses, the opportunities become even wider – but one path will be chosen.

It is not certain that the diegesis created in a design fiction scenario will come to pass. But what if it does, or something similar does? And if we can create products for any scenario, we will be ready for whatever scenario is actually to come.

Thinking about the future allows visual designers to ideate solutions to potential situations. After all, design is about problem solving. If designers can solve problems that may arise in a distant or upcoming time, they will have done their job dutifully well.

With this in mind, it is therefore no wonder how Microsoft was able to predict the future so correctly. Perhaps their visual designers thought through the lens of design fiction, or maybe even speculative design, whether it was intentionally known or not. They most likely considered the potential future contexts in which their predicted products would exist, and designed the smart home prototypes based on that guess. Their prediction is a lesson in setting up diegeses and accurately creating for them.

In an article posted by the World Economic Forum by Heather Snyder Quinn (which was originally shared by a company named Neste), it is stated that large companies like Apple and Google use both of these future-based design frameworks to generate new technologies. “Because these companies are not limited by what’s possible,” writes Quinn, “we hold magic every day in the form of the smartphone, for better and for worse.”

When a designer thinks about a prototype for the future, they end up designing the future. We can predict the future, not because we have special psychic ability, but because we are the ones who create the future we live in. Humans turn predictions and wild imaginations into tangible realities. “Designers are the new inventors,” writes Quinn. When they work in tandem with scientists, entrepreneurs, business strategists, and even entire communities, the collaborative power is immense, allowing us to imagine the futures we need and desire. It is without boundaries and even revolutionary. Anything is possible, even magic.”

Today and Tomorrow

For years, that electric car commercial bothered me for their ecstatic “you can drive the future, today!” statement. But after learning more about design for the future, I think my feelings have slowly faded away.

I have learned that we can drive the future, today.

That’s because everything was have today was once something that we prototyped for the future. The future is in our today, and our today can lie in the future as well. Because right now, in this moment, we can decide what today will look like, and what our tomorrows can be like.

The products we have today are a result of visual designers dreaming about the future. If we can only open our minds to speculate and dream, we will indeed be the drivers of our future – but that starts with our mindset and mentality today.

Citations

Aguesse, M., & Decreton, B. (2022, June 14). Using fiction to Find your strategy. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/06/using-fiction-to-find-your-strategy

Bosch, T. (2012, March 2). Sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling explains the intriguing new concept of design fiction. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/bruce-sterling-on-design-fictions.html

Chang, A. (2011, June 3). Microsoft Smart Home. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9V_0xDUg0h0?si=IKlu4Ys3mcTdfVHx

Interaction Design Foundation. (2016, June 5). Visual Design. Interaction Design Foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/visual-design?srsltid=AfmBOooUFP5OgqNzmviRVdGFXyI1pS-VY5bzLJ9iokn7B4PnWsYSL4pv

Jolly, J. (2019, January 7). Smart home of the future. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bUj-xZekf8

Levine, D. (2016, March 13). Design Fiction. Medium. https://medium.com/digital-experience-design/design-fiction-32094e035cd7

Lupton, E. (2017). Design is storytelling. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Neeley, J. P. (2024, June 19). Speculative design vs. design fiction. School of Critical Design – Applied Speculative Design. https://www.critical.design/post/speculative-design-vs-design-fiction#:~:text=Defining%20Design%20Fiction&text=It%20involves%20creating%20fictional%20scenarios,provoke%20discussion%20about%20their%20implications.

Quinn, H. S. (2021, November 9). This is how design fiction could shape a sustainable (real) future. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/11/what-is-design-fiction-and-how-can-it-shape-the-real-future/