Making Futures Work

Chapter 9. Designing Futures

The significance of speculative design in strategic thinking and planning lies in its capacity to provide forward-thinking, holistic insights into the potential evolution of your product, service, or experience. Despite the uncertainty of the future, gaining a panoramic view and preparing for what lies ahead can be an invaluable asset for any company.

Hiram Aragón, Design Lead, Products and Experiences, frog

Design can play a pivotal role in Futures Thinking. And while today the label “Design Thinking” is scrutinized, shunned, or even deemed extinct by some, we continue to use what we’ve learned from the advancement of this practice to imagine and create well into the future, no matter what we decide to call it. Traditionally, Futures Thinking, or Futures Studies, hasn’t really formally included traditional design methods or processes as an integrated or essential function within its dialogue or approach. Not that Design has been entirely absent from futures work: people have been designing the future for a long time through various applications, channeling their imagination and ability to pick up on trends and cultural shifts around them.

Today, due to a growing global interest from the Strategic Foresight, Future Studies, and Design communities, we are seeing more designers who are adopting foresight and more futurists who are inviting designers into their work. But Design can play a more important role in the enrichment of futures and foresight ...