Strategic Design Fiction: A Plausible Reality & its Implications

This paper aims to discuss the role of the dominant critical tradition of design fiction, as well as defending the merits of a pragmatic and strategic view on design fiction, as potentially real solutions. By adapting one of the most prominently referenced models for specu- lative design (Auger 2013), and using Ryan’s (1980) concepts of fac- tual, non-factual, and fictional statements, we propose a way of clarifying how the ‘realness’ of a given design fiction places it as a speculative design or an actual pragmatic vision for the future. Our contribution is a differentiation of pragmatic strategic, and specula- tive critical design fiction, based on their plausibility as well as their realness. This creates a clear agenda for distinguishing between dif- ferent design research agendas of design fiction, potentially apply- ing it in widely different practices.