ah teaches user experience design (Divergent futures lecture)

Divergent futures

Lecture outline

Methods of exploring prospective futures. Lecture slides will be made available on the day of the lecture.

Insight sharing

As part of this time you will meet with another group and each take a turn:

1. Presenting your insights.
2. Providing some context for what informed the insights.
3. Collect thoughts from the other group.

Find a group that is not doing the same brief.

Insight sharing

(Group A)

Please have the first group present their insights and discuss. Some things to possibly consider:

• Does the insight feel interesting or novel? (Are you interested in exploring or continuing with this)
• Does the insight invite action? (Could we envision making or doing something with this insight)
• Does the insight have multiple research points supporting it? (Is it well supported/researched)
• Does the insight point to a larger 'systemic' issue? (Is the scope of it large enough for us to tackle)

You have 15 minutes.

Insight sharing

(Group B)

Please have the second group present their insights and discuss. Some things to possibly consider:

• Does the insight feel interesting or novel? (Are you interested in exploring or continuing with this)
• Does the insight invite action? (Could we envision making or doing something with this insight)
• Does the insight have multiple research points supporting it? (Is it well supported/researched)
• Does the insight point to a larger 'systemic' issue? (Is the scope of it large enough for us to tackle)

You have 15 minutes.

Questions?

Futuring

A means by which we can try to envision possible futures based on current information. This can be helpful for organizations and designs as we can provide a better future scope for the things we are proposing.

Levels of futuring

Some of these you have likely have already done in the past:

• Anticipating — extending what we know.
• Envisioning — exploring possibilities.
• Discovering — finding the new or hidden.
• Shaping — imagining what is next.

Scoping the future

A good framing for getting started with futuring is considering the 'scope' of what you are futuring for:

• Time — How far in the future are we exploring?
• Breadth — How many different domains, locales, industries (etc) are we exploring in?
• Depth — How deep does our ability to explore a future need to be?

Futuring practice

Let's imagine our current brief/project is interested in how we can prepare to tackle the issue described in your brief in X years. With your group, determine the following:

• How far in the future do you need to explore? (and why)
• How do you define the breadth of areas you need to explore? (and why)
• How detailed would your ability to explore a future need to be? (and why)

You have 10 minutes.

Signals

"The thing or the phenomenon itself, the signal — the news item, photo, service, object, story or event that describes the subject, [and] the interpretation, which refers to how the signal is received, how it is linked to the interpreter's own view and world view, and how it is used"

Using signals

To help make sense of signals we can think about:

• Frequency — How often is it happening?
• Strength — Is the source reputable or influential?
• Direction — Are they growing or shrinking in frequency or strength?
• Maturity — Are these newer or older?
• Spread — Is this appear in one space, or across a series of domains?

What could be signals?

Coming back to our speculation on the brief, what could be signals that could help you explore the potential future in the context of the brief? Why do you believe they are valid/valuable?

You have 6 minutes.

Three p's

A sorting method in futuring that categorizes based on our view of their possibility and based on what we know and understand:

• Probable — The continuation of current trends that are likely to happen.
• Plausible — Trends that could happen.
• Possible — Future trends that aren't impossible.

Check-in

The remainder of our class time is for the following:

• Completing the in-class activity.
• Project check-in (8 minutes per group).

You have 8 minutes.