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DESIGN FICTION

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” - Alan Kay

Future does not exists, but as a result of the ideas, discoveries and decisions that the world is making a large number possibilities of the future can be created.

The way design has shaped the world in approaching to any difficulty or issue is commendable. The process of design thinking has changed radically over time. Earlier design was often restricted to certain finite fields and crafts out in the world. But with time, efforts have been made to change the approach towards design and design thinking process. And it no longer is defined as a fixed notion. Design is all about creating non existing ideas to make the experience of living uncomplicated. This implies to the fact that the design future will be the consequence of the solutions created for today’s problems.

Designing for future can be challenging. But with the emerging systematic changes, critical thinking and methodologies the process of designing for the future has become less complicated. Though achievable by following a certain strategy, this is only effective for the very near future. So the existence of a particular future is still questionable. How to determine what qualifies as a functioning future? What potential do the present designs hold in shaping the future? This is where design fiction comes into play.

WHAT IS DESIGN FICTION?

The term was first cited in Bruce Sterling’s book Shaping Things. He defines it as

"Design Fiction is the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief

about change".

Design fiction can be understood as a process of creating fictional world to

understand the impact of emerging technology and design ideologies with the

utilization of narrative to determine how well they fit in. Design fiction creates a

story-world with prototypes within the story-world. It provides a method to

empathise, understand, define, ideate and critique the possibilities of future

interactions by creating fictional worlds within which the prototypes and user

can coexist.

Along with improving the current user flow design fiction also engages in

improving the user experience. It provides a comfortable flow to the user that

the user is completely unaware of. It resonates with the users because of its

“fictional world” theory, which helps the users to understand it through their

experience of exploring the fictional world which might not be easier to do in

the present reality. The designers are able to look into the potential futures and

their aim is to formulate important and difficult questions about the world. To

explore these fictional worlds future focused artefacts are used.

The term “diegetic prototype” inked by David Kirby in his essay “The Future Is

Now: Diegetic Prototypes and the Role of Popular Films in Generating Real-

world Technological Development” demonstrates the future technologies

through cinematic representations. These diegetic prototypes are created

through dialogue, plot rationalizations, character interactions and narrative

structure. Diegetic prototype provides a functional value in a fictional world.

DESIGN FICTION IN THE WORLD OF INTERACTION DESIGN

Design fiction can be seen as an emerging field within interaction design. It is very evident that there are numerous interpretations and ideologies of design fiction. Blythe and Wright define design fiction as a “much needed complementary method in user centred design that give designers access to inner felt aspects of user experience”. Design fiction practises the research method of prototyping the future and how the potential worlds exist as design fiction. Recent studies in HCI and Interaction design prove that various practices are being identified. Methods like as scenarios and personas are being used.

[A persona can be defined as character that is used to represent a user of your

website, service, product, or brand. It helps in targeting their designs around

the user’s requirements.

A scenario is a situation that captures how users perform tasks on your site or

app. A scenario describes the user’s question that needs to be answered, and

suggest possible ways to accomplish these tasks. ]

Design fiction as a method is being practised in the field of interaction design to explore the potential technologies. Various ideologies can be established

and exchanged amongst the designers. These ideas will help in achieving in a clear picture and can be put to use for specific purposes within various design projects. As mentioned earlier

, fictional worlds are explored through future

focused artefacts. The artefacts can be in the form of books, Research Papers,

journals, films, models etc. These can establish a discursive space between the

designer and the audience by making functional, aesthetic, pragmatic, political

statements and discussing imaginary technologies.

The field of Human Computer Interaction is oriented to the future through both

discursive and experiential methods. It focuses on methods of visualization via

the characteristics of fiction to illustrate technological opportunities. These

discursive approaches often surface critical questions about the technology.

The techniques of experiential prototyping have expanded the opportunities to

understand the aspects of non-existing technological innovations which could

exist. It provides opportunities to bridge the speculative and experiential

approaches to design i.e. the ability to imagine the future and the ability to

experience it. It helps in understanding the pattern of actions while the user is

engaging with machines.

Again let us consider

Various

methods of user experience design are documented in the medium of virtual

reality. Design fiction extends methods of VR prototyping by providing an

interaction within the virtual narratives. This focuses on two important aspects

of the characters’ (basically the user) participation; presence and impact i.e.

whether the character is present in the world or not, whether you are the

character with an impact or not. With this approach, tangible design fiction

elements can be explored in depth by engaging with possible future scenarios

within a story-world in VR. VR works have also demonstrated the ways that

these participative experiences can help the users take on the perspective of

the unfamiliar

VR as a diegetic feature of the story-world.

subjects and empathize with them.

Hence design fiction is an approach that bridges experiential and speculative approaches to design. It provides a take on how immersive technologies might impact the future. It gives the designer the opportunity to expand their ideas and develop new prototypes for the future.

REFERENCES:

1. McVeigh-Schultz, Joshua & Kreminski, Max & Prasad, Keshav & Hoberman, Perry & Fisher, Scott. (2018). Immersive Design Fiction: Using VR to Prototype Speculative Interfaces and Interaction Rituals within a Virtual Storyworld

2. Mark Blythe (Northumbria University, 2014). Research Through Design Fiction: Narrative in Real and Imaginary Abstracts

3. Davis Levine (https://medium.com/@davislevine). Design Fiction

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