Tagged: Design thinking fiction prototype designers

Design Fiction

In the reading, Matthew ward discusses about how design fiction is imperative to us.  We should make it a point to inculcate this into our everyday life. 

To start off, as a graphic designer or a designer of all sorts, I’m no new to this. In fact, it’s the foundation of all things before we even start developing our sketches. It’s the very basis of idea development. Design fiction takes a critical theory based approached to design. A critical design will often challenge its audience preconceptions and expectations, thereby provoking new ways of thinking about the object, it’s use and it’s surrounding environment.

Matthew Wards believes that design fiction provokes, inspires, makes us think and question fundamental assumptions can make a valuable contribution to debates about the role technology plays in our everyday life. In addition, he suggests that the role of fiction and speculation should be brought up upon more as part of design education. He feels that by focusing on the speculation and fictional, design is no longer constrained by the practical realities of today’s material and economic restrictions. Design Fiction concentrates on narrative construction, user interactions, representations of affect, communication and contextualisation.

As a designer, I agree with the message that Ward is trying to bring across. Design fiction should be brought part of the ciriculum as it helps to exercise the depth and test the lengths of one’s mind can go whilst developing an idea. Honestly, I feel that Design thinking shouldn’t be only excluded to designers + creative people, we shouldn’t snub out the others. Everyone should get to know about it. 

Part of Design Fiction helps you to differentiate overly narrow, autistic design fiction from rich, well texture design fiction that does not ignore the material realities of change.While you’re working on good projects, it draws you in, challenges you, teaches you something new and leaves you looking at the world in a slightly different, hopefully better way.

The more design fiction can engage a broad, robust set of trends and emotions, the mere effective it we’ll be; whether corporate or otherwise!

Here are 10 important tips that I’ve picked out from Matthew Ward Manifesto on designing with design fiction:

1. All design is ideological

2. Fiction as a testing ground for reality (future scenarios lay a framework for possibilities)

3. Re-inscribing behavior and responsibility

4. The decisions you make have consequences; prototype them
(What first seems like a good idea, might have unexpected, unintended and undesirable outcomes) so it’s best to think through a range of possible consequences before making the go.

5. Normalise to persuade
(New ideas, objects and behaviors are difficult to assimilate and imagine in our everyday lives. So By prototyping ur work, it helps people to see and put themselves in a future context.

6. Make space for experimenting

7. Think through making

8. Things that work don’t create interesting stories
(The more ‘seamless’ the world is run, the more boring the fiction is.)
Finding the uncomfortable haunting fiction that surrounds an object, the place where social life starts to break down. No fracture is far more interesting than just. World that “just works” best to challenge yourself)

9. People are in the protagonist in the production of reality
( essential to know your target audience)

10. Craft the narrative
(Immerse yourself in the literary world, ,understand what makes a good and engaging story)

Well,  I’m gonna end off this  post with a video from Design & Thinking.
Hope this gives you a better understanding of design thinking, one great example of an invention is the GOOGLE GLASS!