Using prototypes to produce high-resolution systemic future maps. A proposed model for design research and knowledge

Abstract

Design's arguments of innovative transformation and its constant search for a preferred future have become a contemporary principle of the discipline, and yet most design models limit their process to the production of the next stage of incremental innovation. This approach to the future carries significant systemic problems that can go from unexpected behavioral changes to unintended discrimination against certain groups, especially when addressing complex social problems and transformations. Avoiding these systemic problems might require the use of Design Research to study the conditions that produced them. However, design researchers seem to still disagree on the nature of Design Research, and the specific knowledge that can be produced through it. This paper seeks to introduce a possible model for design research that integrates various design theories to help obtain a more sophisticated view of the systemic situation of possible preferred futures. The goal of these process is to seek to produce a better understanding of how stakeholders envision their future, their intentions, values and needs as a systemic view within any given socio-technical system.