Joseph Lindley
Paul Coulton
ABSTRACT
This paper considers how design fictions in the form of 'imaginary abstracts' can be extended into complete 'fictional papers'. Imaginary abstracts are a type of design fiction that are usually included within the content of 'real' research papers, they comprise brief accounts of fictional problem frames, prototypes, user studies and findings. Design fiction abstracts have been proposed as a means to move beyond solutionism to explore the potential societal value and consequences of new HCI concepts. In this paper we contrast the properties of imaginary abstracts, with the properties of a published paper that presents fictional research, Game of Drones. Extending the notion of imaginary abstracts so that rather than including fictional abstracts within a 'non-fiction' research paper, Game of Drones is fiction from start to finish (except for the concluding paragraph where the fictional nature of the paper is revealed). In this paper we review the scope of design fiction in HCI research before contrasting the properties of imaginary abstracts with the properties of our example fictional research paper. We argue that there are clear merits and weaknesses to both approaches, but when used tactfully and carefully fictional research papers may further empower HCI's burgeoning design discourse with compelling new methods.
Supplemental Material
- Paul Atkinston. 2013. Delete: A Design History Of Computer Vapourware. Bloomsbury, London & NY. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- James Auger. 2013. Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity 24, 1: 11-35. http://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2013.767276Google ScholarCross Ref
- Mark Blythe and Elizabeth Buie. 2014. Chatbots of the Gods: Imaginary Abstracts for Techno Spirituality Research. Proc. NordiCHI 2014: 227-236. http://doi.org/10.1145/2639189.2641212 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mark Blythe, Jamie Steane, Jenny Roe, and Caroline Oliver. 2015. Solutionism, the Game. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '15, ACM Press, 3849-3858. http://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702491 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mark Blythe. 2014. Research through design fiction. Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI '14, ACM Press, 703-712. http://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557098 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pam Briggs, Patrick Olivier, Mark Blythe, et al. 2012. Invisible design: exploring insights and ideas through ambiguous film scenarios. Proc. DIS 2012, 11-15. http://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2318036 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Laura Buttrick and Conor Linehan. 2014. Fifty Shades of CHI: The Perverse and Humiliating Human-Computer Relationship. 825-833. http://doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2578874 Google ScholarDigital Library
- William Buxton. 2007. Sketching User Experiences - getting the design right and the right design. Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. J. Carroll. 2000. Making Use: scenario based design of human - computer interactions. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Larry Christensen. 1988. Deception in Psychological Research When is its Use Justified? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 14, 4: 664-675.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Carl Disalvo. 2012. Spectacles and Tropes: Speculative Design and Contemporary Food Cultures. 20: 109-122.Google Scholar
- Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell. 2014. "Resistance is futile": reading science fiction alongside ubiquitous computing. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 18, 4: 769-778. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0678--7 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Nick Foster. 2013. The Future Mundane. hellofosta.com. Retrieved October 7, 2014 from http://hellofosta.com/2013/10/07/the-futuremundane/Google Scholar
- Bill Gaver and John Bowers. 2012. Annotated Portfolios. Interactions 19, 4: 40-49. Google ScholarDigital Library
- William Gaver. 2012. What should we expect from research through design? Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '12: 937. http://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208538 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rodrigo Freese Gonzatto, Frederick M. C. van Amstel, Luiz Ernesto Merkle, and Timo Hartmann. 2013. The ideology of the future in design fictions. Digital Creativity 24, 1: 36-45. http://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2013.772524Google ScholarCross Ref
- Erich Goode. 1996. The ethics of deception in social research: A case study. Qualitative Sociology 19, 1: 11-33. http://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393246Google ScholarCross Ref
- Simon Grand and Martin Wiedmer. 2010. Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World. Proceedings of the DRS 2010 conference: Design and Complexity.Google Scholar
- Derek Hales. 2013. Design fictions an introduction and provisional taxonomy. Digital Creativity 24, 1: 1-10.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Felix Heibeck, Alexis Hope, and Julie Legault. 2014. Sensory Fiction: A Design Fiction of Emotional Computation. 35-40. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anab Jain. The Drone Aviary. Retrieved September 17, 2015 from http://www.superflux.in/blog/thedrone-aviaryGoogle Scholar
- David Kirby. 2011. Lab Coats in Hollywood. The MIT Press, Cambridge and London.Google Scholar
- Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan, Shaun Lawson, and Dan O'Hara. 2013. CHI and the future robot enslavement of humankind: a retrospective. CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems on CHI EA '13: 2199. http://doi.org/10.1145/2468356.2468740 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen, and Poul Rind Christensen. 2013. The Role of Fiction in Experiments within Design, Art & Architecture. Nordes 2013, July 2015: 341-348. http://doi.org/10.14434/artifact.v3i2.4045Google Scholar
- T.S. Kuhn. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
- Shaun Lawson, Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan, et al. 2015. Problematising Upstream Technology through Speculative Design: The Case of Quantified Cats and Dogs. 2663-2672. Google ScholarDigital Library
- YK Lim and Erik Stolterman. 2008. The anatomy of prototypes: Prototypes as filters, prototypes as manifestations of design ideas. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 15, 2: 7:1-26. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rikard Lindell. 2014. Crafting interaction: The epistemology of modern programming. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 18, 3: 613-624. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0687--6 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton. 2014. Modelling Design Fiction: What's The Story? StoryStorm Workshop at DIS 2014.Google Scholar
- Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton. 2015. Back to the Future: 10 Years of Design Fiction. British HCI '15 Proceedings of the 2015 British HCI Conference, ACM, 210-211. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton. 2015. Game of Drones. Proceedings of the second ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joseph Lindley and Robert Potts. 2014. A Machine. Learning: An example of HCI Prototyping With Design Fiction. Proceedings of the 8th Nordic Conference on Human Computer Interaction. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joseph Lindley. 2015. A pragmatics framework for design fiction. Proceedings of the European Academy of Design Conference.Google Scholar
- Conor Linehan, Ben J. Kirman, Stuart Reeves, et al. 2014. Alternate endings: using fiction to explore design futures. Proc. CHI EA '14: 45-48. http://doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2560472 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Thomas Markussen and Eva Knutz. 2013. The poetics of design fiction. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces DPPI '13: 231. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tim Maughan. 2013. Zero Hours. Medium.com | Nesta Future Londoner Workshop. Retrieved September 21, 2015 from https://medium.com/@timmaughan/zero-hoursf68f17e8c12aGoogle Scholar
- Eran May-Raz and Daniel Lazo. 2012. Sight. Retrieved October 27, 2014 from http://vimeo.com/46304267Google Scholar
- Evgeny Morozov. 2013. To Save Everything Click Here: Technology, Solutionism and the Urge to Fix Problems That Don't Exist. Allen Lane Penguin Books.Google Scholar
- Lene Nielsen. 2002. From user to character. Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems processes, practices, methods, and techniques DIS '02, 99. http://doi.org/10.1145/778712.778729Google ScholarDigital Library
- Nicholas Nova and Nancy Kwon. 2012. A Digital Tomorrow. Retrieved September 30, 2014 from http://vimeo.com/48204264Google Scholar
- D. A. Schön. 1992. Designing as reflective converstion with the materials of a design situation. Knowledge-Based Systems 5, 3-14.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bruce Sterling. 2005. Shaping Things. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Bruce Sterling. 2012. Bruce Sterling Explains the Intriguing New Concept of Design Fiction (Interview by Torie Bosch). Slate.com. Retrieved February 9, 2014 from http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/03/02/bruce_sterling_on_design_fictions_.htmlGoogle Scholar
- Bruce Sterling. 2013. Patently untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future (Wired UK). Wired. Retrieved March 3, 2014 from http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/10/ play/patently-untrueGoogle Scholar
- Superflux. Uninvited Guests. Retrieved September 17, 2015 from http://www.superflux.in/work/uninvited-guestsGoogle Scholar
- Various. 2014. TBD Catalog (Vol.9, Issue 24). Near Future Laboratory.Google Scholar
- Tracee Vetting Wolf, Jennifer a. Rode, Jeremy Sussman, and Wendy a. Kellogg. 2006. Dispelling "design" as the black art of CHI. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems CHI '06, 521. http://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124853 Google ScholarDigital Library
- John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. 2007. Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI '07: 493. http://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240704 Google ScholarDigital Library
- John Zimmerman, Erik Stolterman, and Jodi Forlizzi. 2010. An Analysis and Critique of Research through Design: towards a formalization of a research approach. Proceedings of DIS 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- EmotiDog - A Quantified Pet Product. Retrieved September 17, 2015 from http://www.thequantifiedpet.com/emotidog/index.ht mlGoogle Scholar
- 2012. Corner Convenience // The Near Future // Design Fiction | Near Future Laboratory. Near Future Laboratory. Retrieved October 15, 2014 from http://blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2012/03/04/corner-convenience-near-future-design-fiction/Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Pushing the Limits of Design Fiction: The Case For Fictional Research Papers
Recommendations
The poetics of design fiction
DPPI '13: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and InterfacesDesign fiction is an emergent field within HCI and interaction design the understanding of which ultimately relies, so we argue, of an integrative account of poetics and design praxis. In this paper we give such an account. Initially, a precise ...
Immersive Design Fiction: Using VR to Prototype Speculative Interfaces and Interaction Rituals within a Virtual Storyworld
DIS '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems ConferenceImmersive design fiction is a novel approach that embeds speculative interactions within a rich virtual reality (VR) storyworld. Immersive design fictions use VR to translate new design opportunities into story-driven, embodied experiences by ...
Research through design fiction: narrative in real and imaginary abstracts
CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThis paper reflects on the uses of prototypes in "Research through Design" and considers "Design Fiction" as a technique for exploring the potential value of new design work. It begins with an analysis of Research through Design abstracts in the ACM ...
Comments