Service Design Masterclasses

Nicolas Nova is an ethnographer and design researcher, working both as co-founder of The Near Future Laboratory, a design fiction consultancy based in Europe and California, and Associate Professor at the Geneva School of Arts and Design (HEAD – Genève). He holds a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland), as well as another PhD in Social Sciences from University of Geneva. He taught previously in various institutions such as Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Californie), ENSCI-Les Ateliers (France), Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and Die Angewandte (Austria). His work lies at the intersection of social sciences, digital technologies and design.

Abstract

Design fiction recombines the tools of writing and storytelling, particularly as found in science-fiction, with the material crafting of physical objects which don’t exist now, but plausibly could in some version of the near future. Design fiction is used as open-ended explorations of futures, though they can also be employed to better understand a company’s planned future product and how it might exist in the world. Many large organisations already use this approach to learn and iterate even before formal prototyping, wireframing, or writing a single line of code. This talk will give an introductory overview of design fiction, exemplified by projects conducted with public organisations and private companies.