Creating Imaginable Futures: Using Design Strategy as a Foresight Tool Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Silvia Gabrielli, Linda Norlen, Jan-Christoph Zoels

“Design predicts the future when it anticipates experience” Augusto Morello

Creating an imaginable future  Make ideas seem real (Visualization methods)  Embodying ideas  Scenarios of use

Project F: Fabric Care Futures  Advanced design research initiative  Global Consumer Design (GCD) group of Whirlpool Europe (Cassinetta, Italy)  Exploring the future of fabric care  Understand implication for design & manufacturing of major domestic appliances

Informing the strategic design process  Design research: future of fabric care  Observe, understand, model the user experience  Qualitative in-home study in 3 EU countries  Focus groups  New Domesticity survey in 6 EU countries  Reframing the problem

Embodying ideas  Multi-disciplinary design teams  Bring in fresh voices  Provoke ideas, dialogue and future decision-making  Imagine and develop concept products & processes

Communicating research insights  Showcasing the concept prototypes at design exhibits and trade events  Stimulate public perception  Evaluate consumer preferences  Inform strategic planning

Impacting Whirlpool Europe  Created an innovation-friendly climate  Stimulated internal interest, buy-in and support  Dialogue between all the stakeholders  Design gained credibility  Demonstrating ideas through tangible means  Utilizing outside recognition  Contributed an entirely new perspective

Following up prior success  Design research need to be communicated and acted upon  Expanding the scope:  products  Processes  Products, processes & services in context upon  Power of experience as a catalyst to shape visions of the company’s future

What needs to be improved  Create context: show prototypes with scenarios  Involve users in the design process  Evaluate more actively  Act upon feedback

Design and policy-makers  Data and scenario-building is not enough  Enable experiences: visual & spatial  Uses design methods to elicit feedback: participatory design  Uses design to facilitate dialogue

Questions?