Design Futures
An approach to future-oriented technology design – with a reflection on the role of the artefact
Tiina Kymäläinen
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd
tiina.kymalainen@vtt.fi
Keywords: design research; emerging technology research; human-computer interaction (HCI); science fiction prototyping (SFP)
Abstract
This paper describes future-oriented design as a manner to carry out design research in the emerging technology context, i.e. it describes design activities within a research context. For the purpose the paper introduces a method called science fiction prototyping, which has arisen from the emerging technology research with a well-founded aim to encourage future-oriented thinking. This paper briefly introduces the method; primarily so as to clarify why the future-oriented design by science fiction has been found useful. The focus of the paper is nevertheless on the reflection of how the science fiction prototypes may have most value for the design field. The paper argues that this is achieved primarily by considering the prototypes as design outcomes of validated design-oriented research work i.e. by introducing the science fiction prototypes as research-oriented design artefacts.
This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
→ download the paper (PDF)
Cite this paper: Kymäläinen , T. (2016). An approach to future-oriented technology design – with a reflection on the role of the artefact. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016.
This paper will be presented at DRS2016, find it in the conference programme