Building design scenarios the way life is lived: The contextual-scenario toolkit

Abstract

Designers use two types of fictions to prototype the future: Design Fiction, addressing the long-term future, and design scenarios, addressing the more immediate. Design-Fiction writers ground their work in sophisticated story worlds, where every element is contextually consistent with every other. This paper describes a related model of grounding for design scenarios: building scenarios the way life is lived. In this model, every scenario character becomes grounded within their subjective point of view, their own thoughts and perceptions, accessible only to themselves (and the author). Events occur in chronological order. Scenario authors generate contextual consistency using their inherent human capacity for narrative sense-making. Scenario building would be more turn-based tabletop simulation than writing. We have developed this model into the Contextual Scenario Toolkit (CSTK) system. A validation study demonstrates the CSTK’s ability to increase attention to character’s subjective worlds, to prevent loss of peripheral characters, and to reduce certain kinds of bias.