Explore Alternative Future: A Case Study of Cultivating Designers’ Future Literacy via Hybrid Collaboration

Abstract

The epidemic has made it necessary to face the challenges of an uncertain future on the one hand, and to adapt to new ways of working remotely on the other. For designers, a focus on the future helps them step outside of their inherited framework and explore alternative futures. However, research on the design future education is still lacking in Chinese context. Therefore, in the summer of 2021, an initiative called future pioneer was launched, it aims to explore a process model for developing designers’ future literacy. Which can assist designers envision alternative future and influence present through the integration of design and futurology tools. By combining the designer's familiar double diamond model with the process of future scenario planning, the steps are gradually dismantled, and futurological tools are added in stages, from first understanding the future to discovering the future, selecting the direction, and then finally, finally developing the vision. Participants are guided to move from the figurative “real world” to abstraction and then refine and analyze the future vision to form a complete “future world view” and realize a complete narrative through the future vision map.