Another reading on design fiction, this time by Matthew Ward on “Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice.

Below is the beginning of a manifesto towards an education that embraces and interrogates the role of fiction in design:

1. All design is ideological

The social, cultural and political basis of those ideologies need to be exposed, interpreted and explored. In DF the ideological drive is laid bare for all to see. Deconstructing the economic and political underpinning of design is an essential skill to develop.

2. Fiction as a testing ground for reality

As with any practice where contingency is mapped and explored, future ‘scenarios’ lay a framework for possibility. Once represented and articulated they can become a space of shared imagination and language.

3. Re-inscribing behaviour and responsibility

In imagining the norms, morals and aspirations of our fictional protagonists, we set up behavioural trajectories for action. By scripting use, designers frame expectations and opportunity. If Madeleine Akrich is right in her assertion that ‘technical objects contain and produce a specific geography of responsibilities’, then the opportunity to re-assign these responsibilities is an exciting possibility.

4. The decisions you make have consequences: prototype them in the stories you tell

What first seems like a good idea, can have unexpected, unintended and undesirable consequences. Use fiction as a way to think through a full range of possible consequences. The interesting (and often dangerous) impacts of objects happen on the outskirts of intention, like a ripple effect on reality. Pretend before you mess the world up.