{"id":11506,"date":"2019-10-23T05:24:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T05:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/?p=11506"},"modified":"2019-10-23T12:06:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T12:06:12","slug":"on-design-fiction-close-but-no-cigar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2019\/10\/23\/on-design-fiction-close-but-no-cigar\/","title":{"rendered":"On Design Fiction: Close, But No Cigar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are super excited and thrilled that the term \u201cDesign Fiction\u201d is being heard beyond the relatively small community of designers who have been practicing it over the last decade or so. More organizations and teams are now coming to us looking for a fresh and different approach to addressing their needs, concerns, fears, failures and ambitions that the old PowerPoint and Post-it Design Processes simply cannot handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is encouraging for us as we believe the practice of Design Fiction has enormous potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are also concerned \u2014\u00a0concerned for the many perspectives that present a misconstrued perspective on Design Fiction. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We appreciate the take on Design Fiction by IDEO in their Prototype the Future of Your Business With This 4-Step Design Exercise<\/a> podcast. We\u2019re fans of their work and have many friends there, so this is encouraging for us as we believe the practice of Design Fiction has enormous potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, IDEOs discussion and description do not embrace the sensibilities of the canonical Design Fiction treatise, \u201cDesign Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction.\u201d<\/a> We feel the need to add a few notes to rectify some of the most common confusion about Design Fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Note #1: Design Fiction is about understanding implications of decision making. Design Fiction is like a design-based A\/B test.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Have an idea or a range of possible ideas?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Run it through the Design Fiction process to understand how these ideas might play themselves out. Design Fiction allows you to engage the implications of your ideas deeply by creating some possible\/probable outcomes. In those engagements you are actually creating artifacts that exist in those possible\/probable futures. The artifacts you create are things from the future. When you do Design Fiction, you are like some kind of time traveling anthropologist bringing back things you’ve found. When you create these artifacts, you are engaging the context of its existence \u2014 why does this exist? what kind of world surrounds it? who are the people and what are their goals and ambitions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this kind of Design Fiction process, the discussions with your team and other stakeholders are bound to yield new ideas. The primary activity though, is to work with your team and stakeholders to understand the implications of decision making. Implications come first. New ideas follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we know that organizations often want to be told the solution to their problems and Design Fiction can certainly help here, as just described. Design Fiction is about studying possible implications \u2014 not all of them \u2018preferred\u2019, but they are always pragmatic and aligned with reality \u2014 not reality distorted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 How do we do this?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the Design Fiction process we create design-based tangible artifacts that represent those implications. Sometimes we refer to these artifacts as props, as if they were the objects from that future, brought back to today to be considered, discussed, mulled over, debated and reflected upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Design Fiction so may get your \u2018new possibilities\u2019, but you will get something more valuable: a richer understanding of the results of your ideas, good, bad, normal. This ultimately better prepares you for what happens when your idea is in the world. It allows you to de-risk based on the unexpected outcomes (which always happen). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design Fiction does something no other design process does \u2014 it analyzes the outcomes of decision making today, so you have a clearer perspective and understanding of your possible\/probable futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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