Oct. 21 - Oct. 28, 2021
Partners: Kiesha, Ramya, Rylee, Sofia, Zhihan
Brief: Design a way to express the value of boredom.
Research methods: Directed Storytelling and Prototyping
For the second week of our project, we needed to figure out how to develop the concept further and reach a deeper level. The key concept for the second week that guided our project was speculative design.
Speculative Design
Speculative design is a design method addressing big societal problems and looking towards the future—and creating products and services for those scenarios. The term was first coined in the book Speculative Everything: Design, Dreaming, and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne, former professor and head of the Design Interactions program at the Royal College of Art (2005-2015), and Fiona Raby, professor of Design and Social Inquiry at The New School. According to Dunne and Raby, this form of design "thrives on imagination and aims to open up new perspectives on what are sometimes called wicked problems, to create spaces for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being, and to inspire and encourage people’s imaginations to flow freely. Design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality" (Dunne and Raby, 2013, page 2).
Example of Speculative Design
Commonly found in science fiction novels and films, speculative design anticipated many technologies that we now take for granted. For example, in Star Trek, there were some devices that resemble the iPad and cell phones. The "Personal Access Display Device," or PADD, was similar to modern day computer tablets.
Entertainment Pod
With these examples of speculative design in mind, our group wanted to turn the pabitin into an entertainment pod that could measure your boredom levels and then immediately give you something to escape your boredom. So, in the end, it would be impossible to be bored. We wanted to present a sarcastic take on social media apps that might at first glance seem like a solution to boredom, but in reality, never leave enough room for contemplation.
We started thinking about Fitbits and how they monitor your sleep and activity levels. Why not measure your boredom levels as well? We also delved into world-building with imagining where the entertainment pod would be situated. Perhaps it could be like a cubicle that would be in train stations, like vending machines. As soon as the wristwatch app detected when you were about to get bored, it would send and alert and direct you to the nearest entertainment station.
Presentation and Feedback
After our presentation, the feedback that we received was that we didn't go dark enough or far enough with the speculative design. For example, we should have probed more into the question of what if there was no escape from boredom? What if the entertainment pod ended up being Rylee's whole life, a la Black Mirror? Most speculative designs are already fully formed and developed, whereas our prototype still seemed to be relatively rudimentary.
It was also unclear about whether we were trying to offer a solution or spark critical thought and questions.
Another suggestion was that the entertainment pod could offer activities based on your location, such as going to a local cinema or restaurant.
So all in all, we could have thought more about world-building. For example, what would the street look like and what would people be wearing? Would the Fitbit-like device be embedded into the human body instead of worn?
Being More Intentional with our Design
Some questions that we would take forward with us for the following briefs were: what if? how? and why? In other words, it's time to go deeper with our design and be more thoughtful/intentional with each element!
Bibliography
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