Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-dbm8p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-08T15:33:45.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speculative and Critical Design — Features, Methods, and Practices

Part of: Design Methods and Tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Leon Karlsen Johannessen ,
Martina Maria Keitsch  and
Ida Nilstad Pettersen

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Speculative and Critical Design (SCD) confronts traditional design practice. Instead of reproducing and reinforcing contemporary perceptions of products and services, SCD seeks to change them, with the goal to spur a public debate e.g. on what is a preferable societal development. SCD methods comprise among others speculative narratives and design of critical objects. However, the theoretical fundament of SCD is feeble, and concepts and methods are upheld of mere examples.

The article aims to present the features, methods, and practice of SCD, and locate it in the design field. Following the introduction, section 2 presents features and SCD methods and practices. Section 3 links SCD to traditional design and identifies benefits and challenges relating to its role as a supplement to today's design practice. The final section suggests topics for further SCD research.

The article benefits designers in search for alternatives to commercially oriented design approaches. Findings indicate that SCD can contribute to creating new societal roles for designers, foster innovation in the relationship between designers and users, and encourage creativity through imaginative aesthetics.

Keywords

Speculative and Critical designDiscursive designDesign theoryDesign methodologyEthics

Information

Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2019 , pp. 1623 - 1632
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

References

Anon (2017), «Snapstreak» gjør deg til en av de kule. Nå er jeg sliten. [Internet] Available at: http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/sid/Snapstreak-gjor-deg-til-en-av-de-kule-Na-er-jeg-sliten-615942b.html [Accessed 28 February 2017].Google Scholar
Auger, J. (2013), “Speculative design: crafting the speculation”. Digital Creativity, Vol. 24, pp. 11–35.Google Scholar
Bardzell, J. and Bardzell, S. (2013), “What is critical about critical design?”. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, pp. 3297–3306.Google Scholar
Dunne, A. (2006), Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design. 2006 edition red. The MIT Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2001), Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Springer Science & Business Media, N/A.Google Scholar
Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013), Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts).Google Scholar
Eyal, N. (2014), Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Penguin, London.Google Scholar
Foucault, M., as cited in Eribon, D. (1991), Michel Foucault. 1st red.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hekkert, P., van Dijk, M. and Lloyd, P. (2011), “Vision in Product Design - handbook for innovators. BIS publishers, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Hestad, M. and Keitsch, M. (2009), “Not always a victim! On seeing users as active consumers”. International Journal of Product Development (IJPD), Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 396–405.Google Scholar
Irwin, T. (2015), “Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research”. Design and Culture, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 229–246.Google Scholar
Keitsch, M.M. (2010), “A postmodernist approach to product semantics”. Design Semiotics in Use, pp. 24–39.Google Scholar
Klus, H. (2012), Why Society Needs Science Fiction. [Internett] Available at: http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Why-society-needs-science-fiction.html [Accessed 13 March 2017].Google Scholar
Lockton, D. and Candy, S. (2019), “A Vocabulary for Visions in Designing for Transitions”. Cuaderno, Vol. 73, pp. 27–49.Google Scholar
Marenko, B. (2015), Deleuze and Design. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
McHoul, A. and Grace, W. (1997), A Foucault primer: Discourse, power, and the subject. NYU Press, New York.Google Scholar
Mitrović, I. (2015), An Introduction to Speculative Design Practice. Split: Department for Visual Communications Design, Arts Academy, University of Split.Google Scholar
Pierce, J.e.a. (2015), Expanding and Refining Design and Criticality in HCI. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2083–2092.Google Scholar
Raizman, D.S. and King, L.P. (2003), History Of Modern Design. s.l.:Prentice Hall PTR.Google Scholar
Sanders, E.B.-N. and Stappers, P.J. (2008), “Co-creation and the new landscapes of design”. CoDesign, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 5–18.Google Scholar
Sanders, E.B.-N. and Stappers, P.J. (2014), “Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning”. CoDesign, Vol. 10, pp. 5–14.Google Scholar
Tharp, B.M. and Tharp, S.M. (2013), “Discursive design basics: Mode and audience”. Nordes, Nordic design research, Vol. 5, pp. 406–409.Google Scholar
Tharp, B.M. and Tharp, S.M. (2015), What is Discursive Design. [Internet] Available at: http://www.core77.com/posts/41991/What-is-Discursive-Design [Accessed 3 March 2017].Google Scholar