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Research and World Building

In order to make plausible scenarios in the chosen time range 2060 to 2070, I used what I called Control Points (Trends), which are general topics that have an influence on the future.

More specific mind maps, like the the one on Climate Change influences the politics of 2070, the creation of two fictional nations coded as High Tech Union (HTU) and a High Tech Dictatorship (HTD), distancing my work from current geopolitics and creating a story of immigration between two worlds of very different politics and AI implications. The AI mind map was directed in the context of mental health, resulting in characters like ''Aloma'' in the Audio Podcast and Film that represented both a problem and a solution in AI assistance.

AI mind map developed further to understand its impact on many essential aspects of 2070's reality, becoming the ground for HTU World building, clustered into: society & politics, mobility & landscape, economy, healthcare & household. In summary, the further work on the scenario was narrowed down to essential points: 

• Scenario takes place in what's called the High Tech Union.
• The Artefact is based on the mental health needs of HTU citizens.
• The User experience - under focus - is of the Asylum seeker, Kael.
• The User experience exposes contradictions of a problem solver in a ''utopian'' society.

Design Partner and ‘’One Day in Life of’’

As in Present-approaches, a Design Partner (Designpate) is required. After thinking through personal details for Kael (Immigrant, 25-30 yo), I used thought-provoking cards like "did," "said," "felt," and "interaction" to generate a more detailed world around him. Another profound method was "One Day in Life," which widened my imagination of what products Kael would need. Later on, it became "Two Days in Life", generating other characters like Aloma, an AI assistant who guides refugees in their first days.

The Story development (see below) of Kael's first two days in HTU inspired the idea of a mental therapy service and the bio-chip 'ID'. Kael's process of "integration" and building a new home became the theme of the user case of the resulting artifact, building a frequent and rich exchange between the story development and brainstorming the artifacts.

System Design and the Artifacts

Parallel to developing Kael's story in the new home, I was brainstorming on the system behind this service provided to him, the perspective of immigrants as users helped structuring 'sweet dreams' experience to multiple kinds of users, premium, outstanding or regular users/citizens, the major points in here were the degree of data privacy and design variations of virtual spaces upon users' 'classes'

By now, it has become clear that the artifact is more the system of 'Sweet Dreams' than the technology or design of a product which in 2070 can hold many Interpretations, a pillow is a pillow, only its story is what under focus, the context shifted to the User Experience of such high tech in relation to societal classes. below we can see the final speculative system design. the following diagram explains the flow of data and communication between the two speculative gadgets.

Artifact's visualization, Audio and Film.

I started creating a script from the story developed, a dialogue between Kael, Aloma and other characters in a Reception Center for refugees, the script was initially around 7 minutes long and was played to fellow students in the half-time presentation, after their feedback, It was the turning point as I split the story into an Audio Podcast and a short animation film.

The Audio podcast was made with Adobe Audition, Kael was my voice over and the other characters' voices were recorded with the generous help of friends. the podcast is about Kael's first few days in HTU, explaining the technicality of Sweet Dreams

Animation Film.

The short film goes deeper into the User Experience of Sweet Dreams, abstractly visualizing Kael's therapy room and slowly until the end, exposing the systemically oppressive nature of such high tech to 'second-class users', whether his therapist was being more honest through time or the service was being hacked. the end of the film is left to interpretation.

The hack scene was designed by me. There are three rooms: the entrance (left), the tunnel + Camera (middle) and the therapy room (right). Simplicity was essential to disconnect from our present and move to 2070.