inflated
deflated
future(s)
or... why futurists fail to predict futures
nicolas nova - Liftlab / near future laboratory
design engaged - october 2008
Hi, my name is nicolas nova. I am a user experience and foresight researcher, working both for Liftlab and the
near future laboratory. I am not a designer, but I work with them on two angles: (1) sharing and discussins
insights coming from the field studies I am doing, (2) workin on foresight projects about the future of certain
services/objects.

failed future
This is why I am interested in the relationship between foresight and design, namely how people imagine the future and
what role these representations play in design. This talk is a sort of a “stuctured” rant against failed futures. I tried to
collect some examples of “failed futures” (which correspond to failed products) as well the causes of these issues. I am
interested in why these failures occur (opening up black boxes: bruno latour) and will try to summarize some of the
underlying reasons based on past user research.
What I mean by failure is generally the lack of adoption for a great idea, more or less feasible technically speaking.
And also, the field I consider here is consumer electronics/ICT, I won’t talk about jetpacks or such flying cars (although
the same process applies)

You know these nice representation you find in future report, this is the Gartner Hype Cycle

a future?
inflated deflated
I am personnaly interested in that part, when the “future” inflates and also when it “deflates”

*teh* videophone
The videophone is certainly a prominent example. The sort of device you had to have in a flying car. It was actually called
the “picturephone” in 1964 when presented by AT&T at the New York World's Fair. 27$ per 3 minutes kind of prevent
people from using it. And, as we will see with other examples, the company kept spending billions of $ in this project.
AT&T finally decided to look at other markets in 1970 by selling this device for business purposes (for teleconference).
But it failed again because of low-bandwidth to transfer image and sound. Even with the 1992 picturephone, there were
still 5 seconds lag between voice and image! Further attempts of videophone service did not perform very well either and
it took almost 40 years to figure this out.

the only viable use: deaf users
But of course, some people have a REAL interest in the videophone
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hannakjonsd/2715529862/

In the end, this is what emerged: a device on which you could stick real pictures.
(more seriously the equivalent of the picturephone is the use of video in VoIP calls)

*teh* intelligent fridge
The “intelligent fridge” is another recurring failure of interest to me. It started with the V-sync \"Internet Refrigerator\" in
1998, which has been followed by a succession of similar projects by others from the industry (Electrolux, Whirlpool) or
from more engineering areas (Cisco). On that slide you can see the V-sync \"Internet Refrigerator\" and Whirlpool
Centralpark. The value proposition in general is to turn your fridge into something “smarter”, which means adding (1)
microchips so that you have “computing power”, (2) a screen (to browse the internet, check the weather, search for
recipes or compose a powerpoint), and above all (3) the genius of “allowing users to order groceries over the Internet\".
Of course this machine, with its diverse incarnation, never really took off. User studies showed that the device was well
accepted but the problem that it was quite expensive to buy and people did not want to invest money to have so little
advantage.
See \"User Acceptance of the Intelligent Fridge: Empirical Results from a Simulation\" by Matthias Rothensee.

“smart watch”: microsoft SPOT
Another good example if Microsoft’s Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) initiative as being \"aimed at improving the function of
everyday objects through the injection of software.\" Smart wristwatches are the first SPOT-based application (2003). They offer advanced
features such as automatic time adjustment based on location, customizable watch faces, and access to continually updated content
(through FM radio subcarriers) such as news, traffic alerts, weather reports, stock quotes, and sports scores, instant messaging, etc. --
plus, of course, all the capabilities expected of a modern wristwatch such as chronometer, calendar, alarm, and timer functions.
They failed party because you had to change the battery on a highly regular basis (like every 1-2 months) and the target group of that
watch were more eager to change watch than batteries...

people-locator?
another holy grail that I am interested in... all these friend-finder, there are tons of them...

3D Web?
that one is also pretty obvious, i won’t address that

in general, forecasts are only 20% to
25% correct (Steven Schnaars)
> there are lots of futures
some figures
e.g. (1) Schnaars, S. (1989). Megamistakes: Forecasting and the Myths of Rapid Technological Change. The Free Press:
New York.
(2) Asplund, M. & Sandin, R. (1999) The survival of new products. Review of Industrial Organization, 15, 219–236
(3) Van der Panne, G., C.P. van Beers & A. Kleinknecht: 'Success and failure of innovation: A literature review', in:
International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 7, No. 3 (September 2003), p. 309-338.

overoptimism, people smiles on the pics
recurring reinvention of the wheel
little knowledge of similar attempts (or
convinced that new project is totally different)
persuasion that this “proximal future” is the holy
grail/end point
sincerity!
common characteristics
Some common characteristics shared by such “failed futures”.

(some) causes
summary of causes I found/referenced about failure (past experience, literature)

trapped in the zeitgeist
Designers, inventors, engineers, society is trapped in the spirit of the time... the ideas shared
by people always revolve around some common values as well as obsession with certain
things (60s: space race, nuclear; 1980s: the coming of virtuality, 2000s: participation/user-
generated content, “we are the media”...)

trapped in the zeitgeist
the future can only be about user-generated content

time is not stable
Change is not linear and very slow, we love too much continuity and certainty
you can’t extrapolate the past, postcasting is wrong, the recent past is rarely a reliable
indicator of the future. Big changes (black swan/wild card) occur: kodak (APS) and the digital
cameras arrived...

short term, long term
Besides, the change you think you will create is so big in the short term. As Paul Saffo
expresses, after Roy Amara, We tend to over-estimate the speed of short-term adoption and
under-estimate the diffusion of the technology (”Never mistake a clear view for a short
distance”). In addition, things aren’t accelerating and every society has always complained
that things were getting faster, even in the 16th century.

“interactions among the various trends are
comonly ignored, and unexpected
developments by definition are not taken into
account” (John Paulos)
interaction between changes
As John Paulos put it: “futurists such as John Naisbitt and Alvin Toffler attempt to ‘add-up’
the causes and effects of countless local stories in order to identify and project trends”. But
“interactions among the various trends are commonly ignored, and unexpected
developments, by definition are not taken into account”

bad understanding of “users”
THIS IS WHERE the link with DESIGN/UX is even more important and sometimes the notion of
“user” is even wrong. Now let’s move to examining more deeply some reasons of design
failures... “futures” which failed at the time they were designed... some causes that I list
based on my experience as a user experience researcher

Family X postponed the return to home
and intelligent fridge ordered too much
milk
Granny went to
the local store
Electricity black-
out
the average human myth
The “average guy myth”: (a) doesn’t exist, (b) exceptions kills the product/service (even worse
with networked devices). The importance of exceptions in design.

making things more natural
The perpetuation of bad ideas that looked appealing at first glance and fail to do any good. This virtual assistant thing is
one of my favorite, it seems to be based on the dream of dull managers who think the future is definitely in \"natural\"
interfaces: things that look directly similar to our experience in the world (same story with people who want to design 3D
book shop in second life). The problem is that the definition of what is \"natural\" is contingent as well as culturally-
centered. Moreover, technologically, how \"natural interactions\" (e.g. voice, presence of visual representation as in
videophones, etc.) can be translated or supported by technology is often a failure

making things more natural?
This is even more worse because lots of folks want to “naturalize” technologies; we tend, as
humans, tend to perceive them as following a certain path, and the more natural, the better.
In the video game industry for instance, the trend is to mimick reality as close as possible.

is that natural? what is natural shifts over time
The definition of what is natural generally depends on your history and context: for us, it’s “natural” that light appears when we
press a button but for people back 100 years ago it was not the case. In addition, there is a banalization process: the first time
you use a cell-phone, a GPS, an augmented reality device or that you take a train sitted in the wrong direction... you’re stunned
and find the experience original, it’s not “natural”. But then, the way you experience and perceive technology change over time,
as it becomes more and more encapsulated in your daily life. My point here is that what is natural shifts over time.
See David Nye: Technology Matters: Questions to Live With.

the utilitarian fallacy
There is also this tendency to think that people want/must have product to optimize their
life. There is this utilitarian model that comes from previous paradigm in computer sciences
(when people were designing spreadsheet software). The old model of “utilitarist computing”
is translated or directly applied to designing systems for cities, navigation, personal
management of communicating objects... This why we end up with “value proposition” such
as optimizing your “navigation” in the city, “food flows in the fridge”... and terribly boring
stuff like that. I oppose this utilitarian model to something more meaningful to people, hence
the weird animals in the fridge on the right.

where is our “2000”? let’s find some weird angles
At the same time, it’s sa if we lost our “2000”, in the past we used to have these glorious
endpoints (1984, 2000, 2001...). What I am interested in and what we try to achieve with
Julian through the near future laboratory. My impression is that we need to find our “2000”s
or at least discuss about new angles, weird endpoints to create futures meaningful to people.

thanks nicolas@nearfuturelaboratory.com