Eagons, Exoskeletons and Ecologies: On Expressing and Embodying Fictions as Workshop Tasks

Paper in proceeding, 2018

Design fictions can be a useful tool for ideation and for stimulating discussion on the social and ethical implications of future technologies. However, the process of using them can be lengthy, including steps like data collection, ideation, writing fictions, and finally using them in design workshops. In this paper, we present a process of creating design fictions and then using them together with related tasks in a co-design workshop in a business-to-business context. We used speculative fictions and value fictions to support our participants to envision future product ecologies and technological solutions related to supply chains. In this, we were also addressing the societal consequences of those future solutions. As a result, the fictions helped us to collect real-life project insights beyond the speculative scenarios.