Foresight techniques

What foresight techniques does Experientia use?

Obviously, Experientia uses many of the foresight methods that are considered to be “best practice” within the design field: forecasting based on research about potential users, picking a future profile or goal from which to look backward (”backcasting”), and the designers’ common practice of brainstorming.

Some of Experientia’s methods are traditional ones with a new twist. For example, the method of asking a group of key experts for their insights about the future is a practice well known. Sometimes however we choose to draw instead on the experience of a group of young designers from many different countries to speculate on scenarios and offer a range of socio-cultural perspectives; we found that such a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary group often finds unexpected solutions.

Another example of twisting traditional methods starts from the ethnographic practice of fast, informal observation of users, but rather than focusing on common user profiles, we have also employed “extreme user” descriptions as a starting point for scenarios, because their specific particularities can spark more concrete thinking for potential designs. We also try more chance-based techniques to ask “what if” we designed something this way or that.

Translating research insights into design solutions

The difficulty of readily translating research insights into design solutions is common in foresight activities.

One possible way to overcome this problem is to take advantage of the fact that design is an iterative process, in which designs are created and refined incrementally in each successive version.

Going back and forth between the research problem and the design solution during each successive iteration allows for the true development of design concepts informed by research.

Integrating researchers and other stakeholders in the evaluation of proposed design solutions can also be valuable.

Another possible way of helping to translate research into design is to have designers and engineers participate in field research and user experience assessment (usability) studies to gain knowledge on location.

To avoid losing sight of potential users and their context as a project progresses, designers often create profiles (also called ‘personas’) of prototypical users based on the research findings; these profiles can be used as a device to measure how well a particular design solution will serve the sample user. (How would this design solution fit into the life of User A?).

Steps in using design as a foresight activity

1. Synthesise ideas, technology and user behaviours
2. Create an understandable language (visual, visceral, verbal)
3. Model ideas (visualisation and prototyping)