Designing the Future

Design for Future Needs 28th January 2002at Design Council

Stephen AitkenForesight Co-ordinator for London

07866 361233stephen.aitken@theStrateg-e.com

My objectives tonight

• Provide some challenging questions for discussion – provocative and sceptical

• Outline the Foresight Programme in UK and advertise Young Foresight.

My job - take the Foresight findings to business (including designers) and academe in London

History and Future of UK Foresight

• 1995 -15 Panels & Delphi survey• 1999 -13 panels and reports• 2001 - Toolkit and trained facilitators• 2002 on - a few rolling focused research

programmes • 2003 - Web communities and real time foresight (I

hope)

Foresight in Europe, USA, Japan,..

13 Foresight panels and reports

• Ageing population• Crime prevention• Manufacturing

2020

• Materials• Chemicals• Defence, Aerospace & Systems• Retail & Consumer Services• Financial Services• Information, Communications &

Media• Built Environment and transport• Energy & Natural Environment• Healthcare• Food Chain and Crops for Industry

All these have relevant information for designers

Designers should use Foresight,should Foresight use designers?

• Crime prevention – Cracking crime thro’ design (DC)

• Ageing population – Living Longer (DC)

• Were designers involved in 13 Panels and task forces– Very few – < 1% of members

UK Foresight has not really used designers,

But has it used design thinking and processes?

Crime prevention - used design thinking

• Products CRAVED – Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, Disposable.

• Electronic services EVADED – Enduring, Valuable, Available, Distributable, Easy to use, Desirable.

• Focus science and technology on crime reduction• Crime costs £50bn per annum• >100 people on panel, only one designer (Alison Huxley DC)

• Design Council “Cracking Crime through Design”

Foresight workshops for SMEs

• To develop new Visions, goals, strategies and action plans

• Uses toolkit– visioning, lifecycles, goals, capabilities, SWOT, STEEP,

brainstorming, alternatives, force field, contingency

• One or two day facilitated workshop

Does not get to the level of design

The majority of today’s SMEs will not exist in 2016, and the majority that will exist in 2010 do not exist today

Young Foresight (an advert)

• Aimed at 14 yr olds doing Design & Technology at school

• Design something for the future – no constraints

• Just launched 2001• Needs mentors from industry – designers

(could add CAD as well)!

Innovation process involves all functions

Ideas from anywhere

- but incremental investment process

Marketing

Strategy

Design

Production

Sales

“The successful exploitation of new ideas”

R & D

Customers

policy

Suppliers

Working with other disciplines - Marketing to Design Process

• Segment definition– Industry, geography, size– Current end use– Proposed end use– Project specification– Frequency of purchase & use– Buyer and user identification

• Marketing strategy– Product, price, promotion,

distribution – Perceptual maps, efficiency

frontiers

Marketing

Designdesign processes

???

Questions

1. How can we get designers (corporate and agency) involved in using Foresight findings, then designing the future?

2. What relevant tools and techniques do designers use that others don’t use for developing scenarios?

3. Is forecasting function more important than forecasting form?

4. How should designers work with other disciplines on foresight?

5. Scenarios are just possibilities – is it worth investing the extra time to “design” them? Would design create design concepts, prototypes or even products?

6. How far ahead can design usefully take us? 5 yrs? 50 yrs ?

7. Would design bring the Future closer? Make it safer?8. How would we deliver the new design outputs to the

wider markets? What markets? Workshops? Web-shops?9. Will / how will adding design help companies and

countries determine their global competitive strategies?