okie-doke maybe if I set it up a little
bit the reason that we're talking about
this is because design fiction is
everywhere the example that we begin the
paper with is Jeff Bezos talking about
the O'Neill Space Station's
and the film Elysium which also talks
about that same idea if I just silence
Jeff there I believe we're not
infringing copyright because we're critiquing it Jeff is now
showing the O'Neill space station in a
minute I think Jeff shows the current
space station for size in relation to
what he is planning so here's this
vision that this is a design fiction
little short animation showing what it's
gonna be like to live in this artificial
world he talks about worlds right
modeled yeah it looks beautiful right
he's talking about worlds that might be
modeled after cities on the earth or
places where there's you know zero
gravity you can fly around and his
backdrop for all this we're approaching
environmental crisis its rationing or
it's this so we go to space guys it's
inspiring actually you know it's it's full of
hope
these images are incredibly seductive
that's one design fiction around that
particular concept but there are other
ways to approach it
this is the movie Elysium there's a
little flash of the space station but
you can see the exact same idea this
O'Neill Space Station beautiful
artificial world but the plot of the
movie is more concerned with the people
who are left behind on Elysium you have
this miraculous medical technology but
on the earth they're living in this
devastation the plot of the movie
revolves around some people trying to
break in so we've got this Hollywood
critique of the class divide and so on
and then we have a very technical
program design concept exactly the same
design fictions around that concept
radically different so yeah I'm gonna
shut up now let me really riff on that
actually because I think one of the
things we see contrasting these two
sides these two design fictions is that
they're they're doing different
rhetorical work right one is a form of
corporate propaganda and the other is a
form of entertainment and so you would
evaluate them in different ways if you
want to look at the use of design
fiction in HCI
you would similarly use different
evaluative lenses that are more
appropriate to the way the design
fiction is being used in that setting
like we could have design fiction that
is social commentary and critique we
could also have design fiction that is
used as a provocation as a part of an
empirical study and it's just a matter
of like what constitutes good design
fiction in those two settings or
multiple settings varies wildly well and
there's different burdens of proof right
like once if we can embrace the
heterogeneity of design fiction if we
can embrace the idea that design
fictions do a wide range of different
epistemological work then it allows us
to start discussing what are the
standards for a contribution when a
design fiction is doing a particular
kind of work when it's producing a
particular kind of knowledge hence the
fake reviews cartoony reviews that we
included to kind of show the different
ways that people can commit this kind of
work the story of the paper is there are
mixed reviews on a paper that we never
describe so a scenario we've never
encountered in our lives yeah we don't
we don't talk about what the design
picture in the paper that's being
reviewed is about and the reviews all
have different opinions of it so I'll
start off with one of the one of the bad
reviews I guess so this is review four
recommendation definite reject the paper
begins with what the authors are pleased
to call an ethnography insights from
this study are then used to generate
several design fictions these consist
of ideas which are either preposterous
or half-baked the preposterous ones are
described as provocations and the
half-baked ones are claimed as opening
up a space the authors conclude this
work with the discussion large
consisting of impressive sounding quotes
from continental philosophers the paper
should not be published by this or any
other conference the so-called
ethnography is nothing but cultural
smacking a few interviews do not an
ethnography make like many researchers
in HCI the authors have identified a
worthy cause they presume that there
will be a halo effect on their work the
users are marginalized therefore our
study about them is good except it's not
if a difficult topic is taken on then it
should be taken seriously this is a
caricature obviously and people aren't
ever as mean as that the tone of the
review is like don't waste my time I'm a
serious engineer one of the really
important points is that these are
caricatures they are intentionally
pushed to extreme positions to
illustrate these kinds of evaluative
frames almost Weberian ideal
types why don't we go to the the other
end of the spectrum which is R3
who said definite accept this paper has
so much going for it it describes
engagement with a highly specific
sensitive population it uses novel
empirical methods it tackles challenging
but important issues and most
importantly it moves from the overly
abstract theorization of most
ethnographies to much more concrete and
useful design recommendations the
authors should be applauded for the time
energy and other resources they invested
to conduct this work incorporating users
in the design process like this provides
a methodological template that can be
followed by lots of other work this
reviewer says my only complaint I just
wish the author's had said more about
what we should do and so I think I think
what's really interesting about that one
is seeing the value in the work but
missing the the going back to what we
were saying before the epistemic
function that the fiction is supposed to
be doing in this purported paper so I
guess so far we've got the hardline kind
of engineer
that wants a set of requirements and is
going to be very disappointed by by a
paper and then are the other end someone
that like says well you know this this
is a kind of design orientation to a
space where you might be opening up a
space rather than closing it down in
some early stages and seeing some value
in that I wanted to take a selection
from our reviewer one who is a possible
reject say the authors claim that the
design fictions here explore the spaces
opened up by the ethnographic study I
would argue that in failing to include
some of the basic elements of
storytelling characters plot events
dramatic tension denouement and an
invocation of a larger fictional world
that the authors of these scenarios float
free from any issues that might be
invoked within uh from considerations of
the broader social and cultural issues
that might be invoked with a narrative
although this work is seemingly critical
there are deeper discourses of
post-colonialism at play here
yet the authors fail to engage with any
of these issues and so this is a pretty
critical review that we've written here
but it's the one that's really drawing
on a combination of sort of literary
theory narratology where it's it's
evaluating this design fiction at least
in part on how well it operates within
the rules and logics of storytelling the
subtitle of the paper is the right tool
for the job and you know what we're
trying to do with these kind of cartoon
reviews is show that you can really love
something or really damn something
depending on the the way you approach it
and a lot depends on the kinds of claims
that are being made so the question
really is well what is what is the
contribution to knowledge that's being
claimed in the paper and they might be
very different because we're seeing
design fiction being used in a variety
of different ways because design fiction
can do a lot of different kinds of work
and because it can be reviewed from from
a very variety of different perspectives
we need to acknowledge the diversity of
design fiction and design fiction
reviewing so that we can be more
deliberate in in both how we produce new
speculative research
and also how we assess that research we
didn't want this paper to cause like a
fracturing where the participatory folks
go over here the narratology folks go
over there the art-school folks go over
there like I think part of what's
interesting is that there is an
underlying similarity among these
practices and if it's just a fracturing
then it doesn't allow design fiction to
a move past that shiny object phase and
become something really interesting that
can speak across multiple traditions
Tess I know you are running late for your I am
late next meeting so I will close out
this and then we'll edit it so it
looks like you do agree with us yes yes
no no we're we're we're all clearly on
the same page here