Towards user involvement in envisioning practices: Opening the use of the future

Abstract

In the attempt to produce radical innovations companies are increasingly looking for future scenarios that can inspire new products, services and new ways of life. The practices of advance design, as it went by articulating in the last decade, range from the production of concrete products such as concept cars (material crystallization of technological applications and profiles), to the production of semifinished design products such as the design trend-book or the scenarios design. In the process of production and use of these visions in their various forms the user involvement goes from being absorbed by the narrative experience of product/service to its active involvement in the generation of ideas themselves. With a transdisciplinary perspective our contribution would investigate how future studies may inform and complement the ADD praxis and underline, vice versa, ADD reframing value. The human approach will be underpinned by the various degrees of user involvement in the production of future visions through a series of case studies.