Framework for a Project Methodology in Design - Interactions in Speculation and Fictional Futures

Exploring concepts such as speculation, fiction, and critical design in disciplines where creativity overcomes is an approach to identifying potential development, innovation, and future possibilities in contemporary societies according to a set of rational, evolutionary, and sequential data. We presented a framework that guides the students through steps throughout the creative process, allowing them to substantiate concepts, proposals, and utopian and dystopian visions of possible futures. The different dimensions used in this framework can potentially overcome students’ creative limitations regarding what they consider factual truth toward more holistic, altruistic, and transformational visions. The exploration and creation of future scenarios are driven by the possibility of conceiving new potential forms of interaction and behaviors between humans and machines, which also requires critical reflection on their purpose and possible consequences. This approach enables a renewed vision regarding Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) - how we engage with it and integrate technology positively within an artifact, system, experience, or service. Above all, underlying the pedagogical practice, the project methodology identified here through this proposed framework is the learning of the global contexts with which the designer has to work, aware of the impact of his projects in the short and long term, and that he also has the transformational role with society, the environment, and ethics. With this paper, we aim to contribute to a framework that enables the introduction of speculative and factional approaches to design students in higher education.