Dunne and Raby came up with the idea of Speculative Design in 2013 in their book Speculative Everything. Dunne and Raby said ” For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be—to imagine possible futures.” The idea of using design as a tool to speculate about future design and interesting way of exploring the possibilities of emerging technology, but to also design for interfaces which have yet to be created but are hinted at in science fiction or created by the designer themselves. This can lead to some interesting design challenges. The solutions to these challenges can reflect onto current design to influence the development of current technologies or to approach older technologies in a new way of thinking.
Dunne and Raby came up with the Speculative Design Cone. The Cone stems out from the present day getting wider as time passes. The widening of the cone is used to show the uncertainty in the direction that design & technology will develop.
When A Designer wants to work on a speculative project the starting point for them is to come up with a clear Design Fiction(Background Story) they can use this to base their designs upon but can also use the development of the story itself to influence current design. This Design Fiction can be placed in the cone depending on it speculative nature.
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