An experiential futures method for human-centred design
At the heart of every ‘wicked problem’ are individuals operating within complex systems of their own beliefs, epistemologies and worldviews. Unqualified, sometimes fluid other times rigid, a persons values and opinions are the summation of experiences and are therefore innate and strongly held.
As designers practising ‘human-centred design,’ our aim is to probe into these values and better understand individuals motivations when acting within a problem space. Futures Thinking is a set of mythologies used in think tanks as exercises which engage teams to collaboratively explore problem spaces by projecting trends into possible futures.
So what happens when we combine our innate human-centred design thinking and futures
thinking? An experiential future or performance art?
University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Transdisciplinary Innovation Faculty ran an Envisioning Futures Showcase to exhibit experiential futures of work. Here guests participated in experiences lying somewhere between interactive plays and carnival games that placed their participants in the future of work. As part of the CoLAB Lunch team, we lead participants through a company recruitment screening process at coLAB, where “communication is key!” and being respectful to everyone’s triggers is overtly enforceable by buzzer (read more about it here).
The event brought together anyone with stake in the future of work including fellow students, academics, the startup community and representatives from the City of Sydney to collectively feel futures. The experiential nature of ‘coLAB’ resembled a new method of engaging with stakeholders combining elements of Futures Thinking, design thinking, human-centred design and co-design the result being a kind of performance art where the team or artist as well as the participants or audience collectively made meaning, in and from the experience.
“Energy, dialogue happens”
- Marina Abroamovic, performance artist
Upon reflection of our coLAB Lunch experience I found that I was leading people through an experience similar to that of an Aristotelian tragedy and hopefully not as scaring as Antonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, where the participants became the actors in the play. I combined this new knowledge with ideas from Claire Marshell on the influence of the hero’s journey story structure to create Catharsis a framework for creating an ‘experiential future’.
Why Catharsis?
Aristotle's intended meaning of the term ‘catharsis’ is still a point of debate. It refers to the purging of emotions by proxy or in a safe environment detached from reality and consequences in day-to-day life. In another contexts, it also refers to ‘intellectual clarification’ of concepts to fuel debates, thoughts and discussions (ArtEdge 2019) Catharsis is useful in getting clients, potential users and other stakeholders to engage with your futures thinking work by facilitating engagement. Here are my top 10 tips on utilising this ‘experiential futures’ method to achieve human-centred goals:
1. Take your stakeholders ‘on a journey’
As stakeholder engagement facilitator Scott Newton of KJA stated, is important to “take them on the journey” (2019, lecture, 18 April). When embarking on a project it can be useful to incorporate elements of co-design and involve stakeholders in every stage of the projects development. Catharsis can be a good research or prototyping that gages where stakeholders personal investments lie so they can be nourished during the project.
2. Prime a conversation
The process of priming is described by psychologists as prompting an action without conscious knowledge of the action being influenced (Cherry, K. 2019). This is similar to the Catharsis process as the dramatic question is left for the participant to discover. In coLAB Lunch we did not reveal our intended purpose of the experience until the very last stage in Exodos to sum up the debrief. By that stage participants had already been guided through a meaning making process and devised their own takeaway.
3. Make the future tangible
As Anab Jain perfectly advocates for in her TED talk entitled ‘Why we need to imagine different futures’ (TED 2017) sensory experiences make the future more immediate and as humans we are more inclined to move towards action if feel the problem is approaching us (TED 2017). By using sensory tools like sound, smell and touch we can tap into embodied knowledge and collect qualitative data. Us human-centred designs can use this invaluable information to flesh out our personas.
4. Create a forum for discussion
As mentioned above catharsis aims to create an sensory, emotionally intense experience of which you must not leave your audience hanging. The Exodos phase of Catharsis puts emphasis on ‘purging emotions’ these emotions (Internet Classics Archives MIT 2009, para 30) in the form of designing a debrief of sorts which juices, solidifies and creates insights as a take away for the experience to be productively used.
5. Make the future a safe place to discuss the present
Abstract current trends you’ve projected into the future during your scenario building, enough that they are not immediately obvious to participants. It is important that the experiential approach somewhat separates conversation from that of litany, media discussion and publicly held opinion and repositions the stakeholder to approach the problem space from an emotional point of view.
6. Open the mind to possibilities
Futures thinking is speculative fiction, what ifs and thought experiments. These are imaginative exercises that remove us from the bounds of the present, abstract and amplify trends, sometime create them. Make sure your participants realise that it is ‘futures’ thinking not the future thinking, meaning there is multiple futures (Futures Thinking Playground 2019, para 2). There is possibility in this plurality.
7. Mine the Shared-experience
Cooperation between participants may be a huge part of your Episode and/or Exodos stage. Use this opportunity to break social barriers between your stakeholders and allow them to discover the future together than discuss their shared experiences. Depending on the emotional experience you have designed you may foster different yet important bonds.
8. Design an experience for Validation
An experiential future is an effective means of testing and validating assumptions. Make sure your dramatic question and subsequent participant actives are designed to prompt the participants into questioning where we see the ramifications of our actions into the future. Write a prediction of how you think certain stakeholders will react and why. This may help in debriefing and evaluating the experience for insights later.
9. Unveil the hidden
It is important to keep an open mind as facilitators and be attentive to the unintended consequences or work arounds that the participants come up with. These are hidden cogs in the system that you may not have considered. Listen to triggers, pain points as well as moments of success make sure you are taking in observational data as well as the Exodos debrief work.
10. Consider mirco & macro effects
A final general note on considering scale and impact. Whether it be an outrageous experiential future that takes up a warehouse or a scenario set in a kitchen, there will be differing emotional effects. Also consider how the experiential future works with your design thinking process, do you want to use it twice? Or just a research or prototyping tool?
Good Luck with creating your experiential future. I would love to hear of any uses of Catharsis please feel free to get it touch alanathomas233@gmail.com.
Reference List
Cherry, K. 2019, Priming and the Psychology of Memory, article post, Verwell Mind Dotdash, New York, viewed 29 April 2019, <https://www.verywellmind.com/priming-and-the-psychology-of-memory-4173092>.
CoLAB Company Approved Conversation in a future presented at UTS Future of Work Showcase in April 2019. < https://www.behance.net/gallery/79281539/CoLAB-Company-Approved-Conversation-in-a-future>.
Internet Classics Archives MIT 2009, Poetics By Aristotle, US, viewed 28 April 2019, <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html>.
Scott Newton 2019, Building Your Stakeholder, 81531, Lecture, UTS, Sydney, < https://online.uts.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_3390658_1&course_id=_38886_1>.
TED 2017, Why we need to imagine different futures / Anab Jain, video recording, YouTube viewed 23 April 2018, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYjWLqE_cfE>.
The Kennedy Center ArtEdge 2019, Explore the Tragic Structure, Washington DC , viewed 28 April 2019, <http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/interactives/greece/theater/playsTragicStructure.html>.
UTS Futures Lab 2019, Futures Playground, 81521, online course, UTS, Sydney, Viewed 23 April, < https://canvas.uts.edu.au/courses/1276/pages/what-is-futures-thinking>.
