Design Fiction and Speculative Sketching

By now you will be familiar with the ease with which we can create, ideate, iterate, and explore any number of topics and thoughts using the power of the pen and pencil. You’ve got a good grasp of lines, objects, people, and storytelling with visual narrative. So naturally now is the time to start drawing things that do not exist. When we apply sketching to human-computer interaction (HCI) in terms of prototype and application design, then this becomes part of a research process with a definite end goal or product, but if we spread our imagination beyond our immediate environment, timeline, and possibilities, then it might become something called design fiction. Here, we cover sketching for future inquiry, interaction, and ideation. We examine how future thinking and sketching coincide, focusing on the areas of design fiction and speculative design. Although these techniques evolved from arts practices, they have been adopted into HCI and computer science to make predictions, express opinions, and help drive research into helpful and positive areas. We also think about what this tells us about the design and build process for software, hardware, and within processes and teams.