Keywords

1 Introduction

Narratives are powerful tools for telling stories about the future regarding the occurrence and evolvement of different phenomena in the world [1].

However, building narratives, as a part of critical design research and practice, is a complex task that requires stimulating the imagination to improve coherence and facilitate the appropriation of what is designed [2].

In rapidly changing and transforming techno-societies, it is important to acknowledge that technologies actively co-shape our being in the world. They cannot be decontextualised from the natural and social environment [3, 4]. With the advancement of autonomous systems and advanced technologies (i.e., Artificial Intelligence), questions of moral ethics arise: how could these systems ever attach any meaning to what is processed? [5]. Design research and practice should shift toward the social/human agency and engage a wider public in designing the future.

The authors acknowledge that fictional imaginaries and artefacts can support the critical analysis of technologies and ethical and societal questions behind scientific development while at the same time tackling societal issues and human behaviour [6].

Design Fiction as a strategy for more explicitly attending to the feedback loop between fictional imagined futures and actual technology design can engage the designers and researchers in different kinds of thinking to deliver a more conscious design of products, adopt plural visions, and comprehend long-lasting consequences for the future of humanity, and human behaviours [7,8,9,10,11].

Design Fiction is about “creating a believable and relatable story world […] to first represent and then explore the nuances and ‘mundanity’ of future circumstances.” [12].

Design Fiction produces socially relevant artefacts. The future becomes more tangible through storytelling and prototyping [5, 7, 13]. Fictional prototypes, also known as diegetic prototypes, elevate ‘the context by placing it within a larger fictional world’ [7].

The value of Design Fiction to trigger critical discussion about how things could be in alternative is recognized by the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and design community. However, the challenge of operationalizing it into design research and practice is still present [14]. For this reason, it is often combined with established design methods such as participatory design and design ethnography [9, 15].

The research in question aims at proposing a new critical approach that operationalises the Design Fiction principles into design research and practice concerned with the design of technological artefacts, design for human behaviour, and design for societal challenges.

2 Method

The critical approach explores the feedback loop between the future and present to test the future before it exists and find strategies to generate action in the present [16, 17]. The critical approach is supported by the Protocol and Envisioning tool for generating scenarios to anticipate, contextualise and materialise the not-yet-existing technological artefacts.

The critical approach aims at creating a system of relations between societal challenges, society, the natural environment, humans, and technologies to open up the technology to a wider range of interests and concerns and approach the design of technological artefacts in a more compatible way with the human and environment [18].

The critical approach is framed into the following actions:

  1. 1.

    Use the four-stage Protocol and Envisioning tool to generate scenarios;

  2. 2.

    Materialise scenario into fictional prototypes;

  3. 3.

    Engage the citizens in testing the fictional prototypes;

  4. 4.

    Appropriate/rethink the artefacts to address the societal challenges in the present.

The Protocol and Envisioning tool result from the three-year research (2018–2021), engaging six experts from different fields of study (neurosciences, social psychology, design for sustainability, behavioural design, critical design, and digital design), nine design researchers (Design Department of Politecnico di Milano), and circa 100 design students. These experimentations aimed at identifying and testing the tools, theories, and methods to build the Protocol and design the Envisioning tool.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Four-stages Protocol for designing consciously.

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2.1 The Protocol for designing consciously and Envisioning tool

The Protocol aims to support the design researchers and practitioners in analysing the system of relations between human, non-human, and artificial (technologies and infrastructures, institutions and communities) to deliver anticipatory scenarios.

The Protocol combines several existing theories and tools derived from different fields of studies, including Design research and Social Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Behavioural Sciences, and Philosophy of Technology.

The Envisioning tool exploits how Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) films interpret and represent societal issues and scientific and technological development as a part of popular culture.

The Envisioning tool is an online library of cards clustered into two categories: (1) Tech Inspiration Cards (TICs) and (2) Societal Inspiration Cards (SICs) [19]. The cards were generated through an in-depth study using data scraping tools [20]. A review of the existing literature on the philosophy of Sci-Fi was conducted to support the data-driven research.

Table 1 describes each stage of the Protocol with the tasks and tools that are applied to support the analysis and deliver scenarios, including the integration of the Envisioning tool.

Table 1. The structure of the Protocol with tools and references.
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Figure 1 illustrates the Protocol for designing consciously.

3 Research Through Design: Applying the Critical Approach in Design and Research Activity

Founded on Research Through Design (RtD) methodology, in this research, artefact becomes the “key means in constructing the knowledge”, generating design knowledge through making, reflecting, and interacting [28].

In September 2021, the authors conducted a study to identify the weak points of the critical approach and test the Protocol and Envisioning tool. The study is follows the four activities prescribed by the critical approach.

The first activity was building the scenario through the Protocol and Envisioning tool. This activity lasted one day (8 h) and was divided into two part where after each, the authors reflected and discussed the structure of the Protocol. The authors delivered the scenario about the future artefacts for preventing air pollution in the household. The scenario is the first output of this study.

The second activity was materialisation of the scenario into fictional artefacts. The authors deliver two fictional artefacts for the future household called Living Artefacts. This activity produced two aesthetical prototypes, animated to simulate the context of use, functioning principles, and interaction modalities and rituals.

The third activity was testing the fictional artefacts in a focus group with citizens.

The fourth activity involved analysing the results of the focus group to generate a new design directions for design of technological artefacts and interactions to trigger sustainable practices and behaviours in users.

Fig. 2.
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Diegetic prototypes: Transforming pollutants in energy (left) and transforming pollutants in hygiene tabs (right).

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3.1 Output of the study: fictional artefacts

The first output of the study is an anticipatory scenario (the reference year 2050). The authors set the scenario’s structures into the narrative part, explaining the background story regarding the evolvement of the events and scientific and technological development, environment, and society. The second part of the scenario is about defining the fictional artefact in a functional sense (configuration of the artefact, functioning principles and technology, defining the interactions with the human and environment, and the context of use).

The authors generate two fictional artefacts. One artefact envisions how to transform household pollutants into cleaning tabs for the home, and the other envisions how to transform pollutants into energy. Both of these artefacts anticipate the application and scaling of novel technology (microbial engineering), new interfaces (living interfaces represented through reversible microbial propagation instead of digital screens), new services and resource distribution such as the production of the escherichia coli (e.coli) solutions, controlled energy sharing and distribution. Figure 2 shows fictional artefacts [29].

3.2 Engaging the citizens – Appropriating the artefacts

The authors conducted a focus group to understand whether the values prescribed by the Protocol are recognisable and test how the citizens perceive the artefacts regarding technological trustworthiness, interaction rituals, user experience, and whether such artefacts could let them establish a better dialogue with the environment.

Five participants were engaged, aged from 27 to 34, two female and three male, all of Italian nationality. The participants were regular consumers of digital products and consider themselves knowledgeable users. The analysis method was an open discussion, observation, and semi-structured questionnaire. The focus group was registered.

3.3 Results of the study: Observations and limitations

The authors found Protocol's structure appropriate regarding how the four stages of the Protocol interact and how supportive the tools are to make an in-depth analysis and understanding of the systems of relations while triggering critical thinking. The Envisioning tool triggered a critical discussion about the possible implication of technological development, climate issues, and human behaviour. However, the authors recognized ambiguity and open-endedness in the scenario-building process.

Translating the scenario into a fictional prototype requires effort, time, and specific skills. This part of the study took around one month to be realized. These factors may represent the limitation of this critical approach regarding applicability and scalability.

The participation of the citizens combined with future thinking and fictional artefacts was fruitful in this process. These findings may be used to draw conclusions and guidelines for the design of new artefacts and interactions to support the users in adopting more sustainable practices and behaviours.

4 Discussion

Engaging the citizens in evaluating the fictional artefacts helped authors understand how to appropriate future visions. The authors introduce some of the findings from the focus group to reflect on how these can inform and inspire the present design and research.

The authors aimed at investigating the following aspects of the artefacts:

  1. 1.

    Whether the interaction modalities and rituals are comprehensive and meaningful;

  2. 2.

    How demanding are artefacts to use;

  3. 3.

    Perception about technological trustworthiness;

  4. 4.

    Could the behavioural strategies embedded into represented interaction modalities stimulate users to adopt more sustainable behaviours and practices.

Starting from the first Living Artefact transforming the CO2 into energy (see Fig. 2, left side), 80% of the participants stated that they felt already familiar with some of these interaction modalities (feedback through the sound, augmented interfaces, feedback through three colours), and found them very comprehensive (evaluation 4,2 from 5). The gestural interaction was appreciated less than the visual and sound feedback (evaluation 3,5 from 5). 100% of the participants stated that using the artefact is not demanding in terms of interaction aspects and overall usability, and they agreed that this kind of artefact could help them adopt aware behaviours. Nevertheless, one’s impact on the outer world should be made more visible.

Regarding the second Living Artefact transforming CO2 in cleaning tablets (see Fig. 2, right side), 50% of the participants found this idea fascinating, while the other 50% found that the interaction through the microbial surface is “too alive” and even repulsive. The clarity of the interfaces and information provided by the artefact was evaluated as average (3,2 from 5). They claimed that some segments of the interaction were not valuable and necessary. 90% of the participants found this artefact slightly demanding to use, but this was more related to the formal and functional aspects.

Participants in the focus group recognized the individual and collective benefits embedded in both fictional artefacts. However, they expressed some concern regarding the trustworthiness related to the functioning of the artefacts, like: ‘I am not sure how accurate is the air quality monitoring with this technology’; ‘I don’t know if it is monitoring when it is in passive state’. Another concern was regarding privacy: ‘What if it suddenly turns on when I have guests at home, they would know about my behaviour and habits’. The participants appreciated the circularity of the process and the possibility of giving a personal contribution on a larger scale (i.e., share the energy within the community, reduce plastic use). The participants found no unethical or obtrusive ways to influence one’s behaviour in these fictional artefacts.

Such insights may be helpful in considering all possible implications of technological application, interaction design, and preventing negative behavioural outcomes.

5 Conclusions

The authors argue that reflecting through making and using fictional artefacts can enable critical thinking, discussions, and exploration of the plurality of the future [17]. The authors study how to use fiction more thoroughly to deliver more conscious designs in the present [15]. They also introduce and discuss the use of participatory methods as a possible way to approach the appropriation of future visions.

The study described in this paper was the first application of the critical approach in design and research activity. At this embryonal stage of the research, few participants were engaged in the focus group. This aspect of the study is undoubtedly limiting to reporting robust results. However, it was useful for the authors to understand and test the entire process and how the fictional artefacts may inform the design and research at present. This study's findings also served as a starting point to refine the Protocol and Envisioning tool and set the upcoming design and research activities.

From September 2021 to November 2022, the critical approach was applied in another two workshops with experts from academic and professional fields and in a one-year design and research project in collaboration with IxD lab from ITU Copenhagen.

Beyond the professionals and academic researchers, the Protocol and Envisioning tool was also applied in Politecnico di Milano Design School educational activities.

Further development of this research will aim to understand how to manage the ambiguity in such a process and find a more objective way to interpret fictional artefacts to draw the strategies for design and research in present.