Critical Design - from theory to practice
Introduction
As I wrote in an earlier article, me and Jens facilitated a workshop during the Stockholm Xperience conference.
The theme of the conference was “Design for a better world“, so I felt it was no better opportunity for us to do our Critical Design workshop. Since I got introduced to the field during my years studying I have been intrigued on how to translate Critical Design into everyday work.
I have always believed the consumer side of product development could benefit from reflecting and speculate about potential longterm impacts of our product decisions.
“Asking ourselves what potential impact can our product and design decision have for our society in the long run. ”
In this article I will write a bit more about Critical Design, but the focus will be on how to facilitate a workshop similar to the one we did during the conference.
Critical Design
Critical design uses design fiction and speculative design proposals to challenge assumptions and conceptions about the role objects play in everyday life. Critical design plays a similar role to product design, but does not emphasize an object's commercial purpose or physical utility. It is mainly used to share a critical perspective or inspire debate, while increasing awareness of social, cultural, or ethical issues in the eyes of the public. // Wikipedia
The main difference between product design and critical design is that critical design uses “Design objects“ to observe and provoke reactions for the pure reason of understanding how people reacts to certain concepts. But has no ambitions to create consumer products on the data gathered, which product design has.
Workshop
There are several ways of taking advantages of Critical Design in our everyday product development processes. One way of sparking some engagement and have some fun around it is to have this kind of workshop. We allow ourselves to do things we rarely get to do, things like:
Not focus on results
Focus on discussions rather than outputs
Be dramatic, and dare to speculate about the ridiculous.
This workshop can be done in an hour if you have planned a bit ahead, like one should when it comes to workshops. This workshop can be done with your Design team, your product team, or maybe your management team. But don’t forget to adapt the workshop based on your audience.
Preparation - decide themes
In the workshop during the conference we worked with four different themes. If you work with an organisation you can adapt these themes to your organisation goals instead. Many organisations often have goals related to sustainability, inclusivity and subjects that does suit Critical Design very well. It is easier to get people engaged if they are already familiar and engaged with the themes.
These were the themes from our workshop during the SXC
Climate Crisis and Environmental Sustainability
Surveillance Society
Digital Addiction and Mental Health
Artificial Intelligence and Automation
You will need to write a short description for every theme. Example for the theme “Climate Crisis and Environmental Sustainability“ - Address the urgent need to respond to environmental degradation, climate change, and sustainability.
Timeslots for the workshop
Introduction to Critical Design (5min + 5min intro to the workshop)
Workshop part 1 current state (5min)
Workshop part 2 Design Fiction Scenario (10min)
Workshop part 3 Impact and perspectives (10min)
Discussion and reflection (10min)
Outtro (10min)
5min over for mess ups, always plan for fuck ups.
Introduction to Critical Design
Introduce Critical Design and set the tone for the workshop. It is important that the participants in the workshop understands the main purpose for the workshop. Which is to dare to discuss and put your product into unexpected perspectives. Dare to speculate about outcomes which might not be flattering. How you set this up is dependent on your audience of course.
Part 1 workshop Current state
Let the groups think about how there theme embody itself in the real world as it is now. This works well as a warm up, as well as setting a starting point. Knowing where you started and where you might head if you’re not cautious. You can use 5-10min, I think 5min is quite suitable for this one.
Current State template
You can use a template like this, it guides the participants a bit better than a blank piece of paper.
Part 2 Design Fiction Scenario
Part 2, now we’re heading into the exaggeration part. In the workshop we facilitated during the conference we prepared What if statements. But if you like to do this with your groups add another 10minutes to do so. And prepare a template for it, as well as examples to follow.
Example of a What if statement on the theme “Climate Crisis and Environmental Sustainability” - What if individuals were required to track their carbon footprints through a mandatory app that monitored daily activities
Based on the What if statement you let the participants write a Design Fiction Scenario. A Design Fiction Scenario is a scenario based in the future and does not need to have any anchoring in the real world, it only has to relate to the What if statement.
What we have noticed here is that while writing the Design Fiction Scenario it is easy to tag into the next part of the workshop which is writing potential Impact. So make sure to write an example which focus only on a scenario that is happening and not what impact it might have in the future. If they happen to mix them it is fine, because in the next phase they will write impacts but from several perspectives. So they can see it as an iteration.
“Motivate the participants to speculate about a potential future, much like Black Mirror”
What if and Design Fiction template
A design fictions scenario based on this What if could sound something like (see image): In a world shaped by relentless climate crises, governments worldwide have introduced "The Green Ledger Act." This legislation mandates every individual to track their personal carbon footprint using an app called CarbonEye. Backed by AI and ubiquitous surveillance technologies, the app monitors daily activities, translating them into a personalized "Carbon Budget." The global mantra: "Every gram counts."
Part 3 Impact
Based on the Design Fiction Scenario we have landed in writing potential longterm Impacts if these scenarios were about to come true. The most important thing here is to motivate the participants to dare to exaggerate. In the template we made we gave them two perspectives. The Utopia one, in the best of worlds what could happen if their Design Fiction Scenario was about to come true. And from an Dystopia perspective, what could be the worst thing happening if there Design Fiction Scenario was about to come true. You can choose other perspectives if you like, some perspectives that maybe fits better into your line of work.
Impact
One Impact from an dystopia perspective based on the Design Fiction scenario above could be: At the top of the pyramid are the Carbon Privileged, wealthy individuals and corporations who exploit CarbonOffset Credits to maintain lavish lifestyles. These elites live in eco-cities with advanced green technologies—vertical forests, solar domes, and AI-managed resource systems—while emitting minimal recorded carbon. They monopolize the few remaining luxuries, such as air travel, imported goods, and unregulated energy usage.
Their privilege stems not only from wealth but from access to generational carbon privileges, passed down through "EcoLegacy Trusts."
Reflections
These last parts of the workshop is fully dependent on who your participants are. If you’re doing it with your design team you could probably reflect on the method itself, and the result you have created. If you’re doing it for a wider audience you could maybe focus a bit more on reflecting if the Impacts you have speculate about could actually come true for your line of work in your field. The possibilities are endless.
Some last words
There you have one way of doing this kind of workshop. Feel free to use the templates, you can find them here, but make sure you adapt them so they suit what you want to achieve. Even if it’s not a result driven workshop, it might open your way of thinking about product and design decision and what impact it could actually have. In the material we also give some small pointers on how to do small activities which might make a big change in the long run. Here they are again
Add one Critical Persona to your personas/archetypes/target groups
Add one Critical question where you let your respondents reason about future risk and outcomes related to what you’re investigating
Add one Critical Perspective to your Crazy 8 session
Add one Critical Scenario to your discovery work or prototype testing
Add one metric to your KPI's or OKR's which relates to more ethical outcomes
Add one row in your user journey mapping stating out impacts from different perspectives
Thank you all who participated in the workshop during SXC, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding this or want someone to facilitate a similar workshop at your place.
