Operationalizing design fiction with anticipatory ethnography

Lindley, Joseph and Sharma, Dhruv and Potts, Robert (2015) Operationalizing design fiction with anticipatory ethnography. In: Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings :. Wiley, pp. 58-71.

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Abstract

Transmuting the entanglement of situations, contexts, artifacts and people, designers mediate the relationship between ‘what could be’ and ‘what is’. All design, then, has an implicit relationship with the future. Latency will always exist as part of this relationship, between the inception of a design concept, development and delivery ofthat concept, and the manifestation ofthat concept’s potential impact on the world. As we move further into the heart of the Digital Revolution these periods of latency decrease, whilst the breadth and depth of potential impacts increase. Always an arm’s length away, but with a velocity and mass greater than at any point in history, the momentum of the future today is greater than ever before. This paper describes the practicalities of operationalizing design fiction, using anticipatory ethnography, in order to illuminate and explore the implications of plausible near futures and in doing so allowing designers and their designs to match the velocity of the future before critical impacts occur. By harnessing designers' speculation can we make the future’s ‘what is’ better than simply ‘what could be’?

Item Type:
Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings
Subjects:
?? design fictionethnographydesign ??
ID Code:
76472
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
03 Nov 2015 22:00
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
07 Feb 2024 01:20