Over the Horizon: Narratives of the Future

Last night I attended a talk at Work Gallery, London on designing for/in the future. The discussion panel was made up of James Auger, Sam Hecht and Zoe Laughlin. The three were seemingly all trying to have very different conversations, and whilst I could have listened to any one of them talk for hours on end, the discussion element of the evening didn’t work quite as planned. It was very insightful none-the-less.

Some of the more interesting discussions came towards the end, when the idea of responsibility in design was suggested. This seemed to be something very close to what James’s work seeks to examine: speculative design. Should we be questioning whether future technologies are actually beneficial for us personally and for society as a whole, and what is the role of the designer in creating these interactions?

The example was brought up of a smart phone vibrating when you get a text, email or Facebook update. Is it our personal responsibility to turn the sound, vibration and push notifications off? To what extent does the interface or product designer control these interactions? We could design a phone that couldn’t be put on silent, we could design apps which alerted you to every little update of your social circle. Would these products still succeed, to the detriment of our sanity, or would we refuse to use them? 

There is an argument to say that the applications and devices we use regularly have entered into our lives so prolifically because they give just the right amount of interaction. The democracy of the web allows us to use only the apps that fit into our lives, the ones that are useful without frustrating us. But is this enough of a filter? Should we also be considering the greater impact to society of being constantly engaged with our social networks? Do we need to be checking ourselves as a society and creating social etiquette with regards to emerging interactions? Or would it be conservative to try and do so?