Speculative Design

Today we had a guest lecture by Georgina Voss, an anthropologist in technology and innovative services. The subject of this lecture was Speculative Design, which is a methology with the aim of encouraging designers to rethink the way they approach projects and consider what the future of design could hold. Design schools traditionally teach us to solve problems whereas Speculative Design aims to teach us to find the problems. One example we were shown that provided a tool to aid this change of mindset was the A/B manifesto by Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

The A/B manifesto provides paralleled alternatives to terms/ideas that are common in design. For example: Innovation becomes provocation Affirmative becomes critical Consumer becomes citizen User becomes person Fun becomes satire This framework encourages us to question the norm. When applied to subjects Speculative Design can result in unexpected and bizarre ideas, and often these are not functional. This begs the question of what is the purpose of using this methology? The answer is, it helps us consider ways in which we can design to create our preferred future and encourages discussion that can provide insights and ideas that may otherwise not arise.