How Digital Prototyping Contributes to Speculative Design
The computer industry has merged with many other industries and as a result, we are surrounded by ubiquitous computing not only in our workplace, but in our homes, and when connecting and sustaining social relationships (Dunne, 2006, pp. 21-22). Growing up I experienced slow dial up internet, looked up information at the library, and used public payphones when out. Now I am constantly connected to the internet of things from my phone, smart tv, Roomba, to Alexa. Rather than developing electronic products to be consumed for the sole purpose of profitability. Dunne urges designers to challenge these ideas and instead develop electronic products for the betterment of people’s lives (Dunne, 2006, p. 16). This is similar to what speculative designers attempt to achieve. Speculative design encourages its audience to question possible futures and endeavours to come up with ideas to make that future better. When considering a futuristic world, it is easy to imagine a place where digital devices play a major role, which is one way digital prototyping practices can contribute to speculative design approaches.
For example, in the context of this course, we had to implement digital prototyping practices for our speculative design project. As designers we usually identify a problem and strive to solve or improve upon it. In contrast to other projects, this time we identified a problem and tried to stay away from jumping to solutions. We wanted to start a conversation and inspire people to change their behaviours. Throughout our discussions and ideating sessions, we had to stop and ask ourselves if we are staying in the speculative or if we were designing solutions. This constant self-regulation has been very different from other projects as we had to make sure we didn’t try to solve the issue we were addressing. Instead, we wanted to spark a conversation through our three digital prototypes; an interactive application through Adobe XD and two websites using Bootstrap. Through our “Fix A Fruit” prototype, we wanted to challenge people’s view of food and consequently how this impacts their food waste habits. In addition to that, the prototype served as an explorative tool as to why people try to present an exaggerated version of themselves and their food on social media. If our app could start a conversation that would reduce people’s food waste, and give them an alternative view of social media, we could have a positive impact on their future food sustainability and self-image.
Digital prototyping, just as other design practices, allows for quick and realistic displays of a concept. A designer can begin with a rough sketch or wireframe and then create a simple, interactive prototype to present to stakeholders. Through this process, they can get a sense of how the actual product will behave, moreover validate whether something is worth being developed further. If a speculative designer wanted to create a digital prototype to convey their message, they might not have the skills or access to the technology that they need to create a fully functioning artifact. Dunne (2006) argues that high fidelity prototypes within speculative design are not always attainable. Most smart materials are underdeveloped, expensive, or unavailable for design purposes. This leads designers to find lower fidelity alternatives to simulate what they are trying to achieve (pp.29-30). Through digital prototyping practice, speculative designers can ideate on what they want to create, sketch it out, and build a digital prototype to present their ideas to their audience. They may not have access to programmers or the futuristic materials they need to create their digital speculative designs, but “through the creation of tangible prototypes, it is possible to project the existence of these concepts into near reality” (Malpass, 2016, p. 480). For instance, we used Adobe XD prototyping software to present our speculative project to users. We wanted to make an application that resembles Instagram, however we lacked the programming skills to code a functioning application ourselves. Using Adobe XD allowed us to make a prototype that users could test and interact with without writing the code ourselves.
Prototypes serve different purposes. They can be used to validate and test a concept, to communicate to stakeholders, to learn through raising more questions and answering questions too. Prototypes can provide a glimpse of what the product could do even if they are not fully functional. This is helpful in the field of speculative design because within this field, people need to have a base in reality. The prototype needs to feel familiar, plausible and probable and a digital prototype can provide this for speculative users. Dunne and Raby (2001, as cited by Bardzell et al. 2016) defined a successful provocative design as one that finds the middle ground: “a slight strangeness is the key — too weird and they are instantly dismissed, not strange enough and they’re absorbed into everyday reality” (p. 295). We searched for this middle ground in our speculative project, our prototypes provided a sense of familiarity for our users and they knew how to interact with them without any onboarding process. We wanted to bring up the issue of how people judge fruit in a superficial way similar to that of social media, which not only leads to food waste but to higher carbon emissions. Through the use of Adobe XD, we created a mockup of our “Fix A Fruit” app which was rather polished and seemed like it could be real. Bardzell et al. (2012) believe that “designers must always address the tensions around novelty and familiarity” (p. 295) and this is what we found difficult in our project. We wanted it to be familiar but in doing so we lost the novelty. Unfortunately, staying too close to reality, Instagram in this case, our users passively interacted with the prototype. They mindlessly scrolled and didn’t pay attention to our text. Behaving just like they would if on the real Instagram app. Going forward, we would iterate again and try to find the correct balance between reality, familiarity, and ambiguity.
What makes digital prototyping unique and contributes to speculative design is that when it comes to electronic products they hold “unique qualities” that through the user’s interactions, can persuade them to see themselves as the protagonist. As the user engages with the artifact, their understanding of the experience is increased (Dunne, 2006, p. 90). Surely a person can be the protagonist with a physical prototype, however they have other factors at play that could influence that experience. Such as the size and weight of the object, if it is too heavy or uncomfortable. If other people are nearby will they still feel comfortable interacting with the prototype as if they would on their own? Do they need to collaborate with others to make it work? In regards to our project’s digital prototype, only one user would interact with the app at a time, it was lightweight and personal, they could use it without anyone watching or judging.
Through the use of a digital prototype, a speculative designer can change how a person understands the narrative presented to them. The user can see themselves as the main character and in a position of power. They are in control and can decide what happens while using the device. In addition, they are in control of how they react to their new understanding as well as their actions going forward. By giving the user that sense of power, they are more engaged in the product. With our project, our users did not appreciate the original structure of our prototype. In our earlier iterations we had very exact goals and flows the user had to perform in a specific order. It did not provide an opportunity to explore or take control. In our later iterations, we decided to provide more options to our users so they could choose which goal they wanted to pursue, whether that was looking through the newsfeed, editing an image, or posting a comment. The purpose of our prototype was to change our audience’s understanding of food waste and social media. The critique on social media was obvious to our users, though unfortunately, our sustainability message did not come across as clearly. In spite of our concept not being clearly presented to our users, our speculative design approaches were enhanced by the digital prototyping practices we implemented. The users enjoyed the improvements to the flows we made available to them. We hoped that the users and our audience would take the information we provided and change their actions for the better.
Interacting with a digital prototype in a speculative setting, pushes people into imagining living with the device. This can raise all sorts of reactions as they consider the real product’s affect on their lives (Gaver and Martin, 2000, p. 7). People’s prior experiences influence how they react to a device, because of this, users can interact with prototypes in unique and unexpected ways. They can each imagine how the real thing will fit into their lives. The knowledge provided through testing can lead to better interactions and a sense of connectedness with a device. As everyone approaches a device from their own distinct standpoint, Gaver and Martin (2000) suggest that these interactions provide insight into stakeholder’s values and beliefs. “Eliciting a conversation about the directions we might take in pursuing information appliances” (p. 7). Even though users don’t interact with the real device, that doesn’t prevent them from envisioning or having a conversation with others on how their lives could be impacted by this device.
Such as in our speculative design project, we wanted our prototypes to start a conversation about food waste and its effect on the future. What will their lives look like when they don’t have access to their favorite foods. Or when food is scarce and they will have to lower their superficial expectations on food. Will social media still have such a stronghold on people in that situation? Will people still want to portray an enhanced version of themselves and their food or will they be more focused on survival? Will people wake up from their superficiality and make better sustainable choices now related to their food consumption and waste, in order to avoid food scarcity in the future. In speculative design, a product is used rhetorically. It is constructed around a narrative of use and placed within a context to explore possible alternative futures (Malpass, 2016, p. 475). Even though the object is not in actual use, it still explores alternatives and allows for further discussion. It provides the audience with something to connect with, to reflect upon, and to speculate over (Malpass, 2016, p. 486). We did not need to present a fully fleshed out idea to have an impact on our users. Furthermore, our app didn’t have to be real to start a discussion about how to better the future.
References
Bardzell, S., Bardzell, J., Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., & Antanitis, J. (n.d.). Critical design and critical theory. Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference on – DIS ’12.
Dunne, A. (2006). Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gaver, W. & Martin, H. (2000). Alternatives: Exploring information appliances through conceptual design proposals. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’00, 2(1), 209–216.
Malpass, M. (2016). Critical Design Practice: Theoretical Perspectives and Methods of Engagement. Design Journal, 19(3), 473–489.
Prototyping Reflective Journal 