Named by Bruce Sterling (Shaping Things, 2005) and developed by Julian Bleecker (Design Fiction, 2009), Brian David Johnson (Science Fiction Prototyping, 2011), and Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (Speculative Everything, 2013).
Builds artifacts from a possible future, such as a product manual, an advertisement, or a news item, so a speculative future becomes concrete enough to argue about.
When to reach for it
When a strategy depends on a future too distant or strange for forecasts, and people need something tangible to react to.
How it runs
- Pick a time horizon, from five years to fifty.
- Collect six to ten weak signals of change.
- Choose one driver of change and follow it to its consequences.
- Make an everyday object from that world.
- Show it to people and note what they dispute and why.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Shaping Things, 2005
- Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction, 2009
- Science Fiction Prototyping, 2011
- Speculative Everything, 2013