Living Prototypes Fabricating Shared Experiences Abstract: Empathy is a type of thinking that makes us more helpful and generous in our encounters. But how can the design team, the client, and the user share a single, subjective experience? In this workshop we will be stretching the limits of prototyping. Storyboards, scenarios, sketches, and videos are helpful tools used to communicate the different elements of an experience, but they position the designer as passive. Using a range of multi-sensorial tools, participants will not be observers of an experience, but will be active co-explorers. Although these ideas are not new within the design community, we believe they have fallen out of focus. Experiential prototyping is not inherent in “design thinking,” but in what we see as “design action.” Innovation: Designing immersive, multi-sensorial experiences is no longer just for the benefit of end users. Experiences are a complex and subjective phenomenon—they go beyond the senses, and are influenced by a range of contextual factors like a person’s social circumstances, schedule, environment, perceptions, values, and more. Prototyping an experience can help designers, users, and clients explore and communicate what it is like to engage with the product, space, or system being designed. If designers and clients can share in these experiences, they are more likely to understand the issues and needs of their user.

1. v
Living Prototypes:
Creating a Shared Experience
Jamie Ferguson & Elinor Keshet | Idea Couture

2. Welcome!

3. Blockbuster
and Chill?
Blockbuster’s inability to seek out and explore the connectivity of unforeseen
factors, specifically the emerging landscape of networks, made it impossible to
see the larger picture; to understand their customer or potential new markets;
or to plan for change at all.

4. Netflix
lol
Netflix benefited from looking outside the film and entertainment industry, and
found opportunity in emerging technology. Through smart gap analysis, they
sought out non-obvious but strategic partnerships. They also learned from the
mistakes of others.

5. Sears
Shrinking
Instead of seeking to understand the shifts happening in consumer values and
ecommerce technology, the retailer focused on share buybacks. Sears signed
90 year plus leases, betting the future would be business as usual, and failed to
foresee the shrinking of appliance footprints, and unseasonably warm winters
as a result of climate change.

6. Cat
Come Back
As a result of an unanticipated surge in competition, and their failure to plan for the
political effects of an embargo, Cat was on the brink of bankruptcy, losing almost US$1
million a day. A team of ‘breakthrough thinkers’ were brought together to envision new
possible futures, then realigned the overall corporate strategy to activate the fundamentals
they wanted to achieve.

7. Mattel has institutionalized futures thinking, literacy, and capabilities from the enterprise level
through brands. They actively seek out key drivers of change in the market, technology, and
culture. While consistently refreshing their research, Mattel uses future scenarios to help
ensure that new products are designed with new findings in mind. It allows them to track
potential disruption and future territories for growth.
Mattel: The
Future of Play

8. In light of population growth, environmental risks, and emerging competition, USA’s largest
meat processor is investing in getting people to eat less meat. Critical to staying relevant and
sustaining growth, the effort is part of Tyson’s goals to understand broad, long term change,
and diversify their strategic priorities and capabilities accordingly.
Tyson: Next Category
Definition

9. A framework that underlies all Musk’s successes: challenge the status quo and ask big
questions; prioritize R&D; anticipate failures, and always assume there are adjustments to be
made based on new information; encourage criticism and dialogue; plan for worst and best
case scenarios; make roadmaps and continuously update a master plan.
Zip2, Paypal, Tesla,
SpaceX, SolarSun…

10. “
It’s very important to have a
feedback loop, where you’re
constantly thinking about what
you’ve done and how you could
be doing it better.
Elon Musk

11. Probe multiple potentials and
outcomes
Create a shared place
for exploration
Look for patterns and
connectivity
Explore transformational
change
Reimagine on a
continuous basis
Promote preparedness,
resilience, agility

12. real-world challenges
+ emerging change
+ experiential prototypes
= future proof service design

13. ?
?
How do we
design for uncertainty

14. Foresight is an extension of our
natural ability to think about
the future.

15. ?
?
How do we grapple with the
unknown

16. Prototypes are a tangible means
of wrangling with the unfamiliar.
They help make futures more
immersive, graspable, and
immediate.

17. Future Scenarios leverage the
power of storytelling.
They help us explore how new
offerings might manifest in the
future, and what types of actions,
resources, and capacities may be
required.

18. “
Futures are not a
destination or something to
be strived for but a medium
to aid imaginative thought
to speculate with.
Dunne & Raby

19. Design fictions are provocations.
They employ storytelling as an
experimental device to question
the world around us.

20. ?
?
How do we create experiences
fit for the plurality, complexity,
and dynamism of a rapidly
changing world

21. “
The future is already here it’s
just not evenly distributed.
William Gibson

22. Becoming
acquainted with the
extreme present

23. Scanning is an approach for
examining diverse sources for
critical information about how the
world is changing.

24. “
You can’t find secrets without
looking for them. Peter Thiel

25. Future visions
for living and dying

26. Wild Ideation!
Don’t just go there, live there;
die there.
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Airbnd Ender

27. “
Any useful statement about the
future must appear ridiculous.
Jim Datar

28. A growing number of people are experimenting with microdoses of
psychedelics and nootropics to increase cognitive function. Substances
can be purchased along with a drug kit test from the dark web using
bitcoin.
Smart
Drugs

29. BeBespoke is a travel and events consultancy that designs one-of-a-kind
experiences and private journeys facilitated by local experts.
BeBespoke
Destination
Atelier

30. Developed in the Netherlands, it’s an international concept that works with
mediators from around the globe, allowing people to divorce in different
countries but according to Divorce Hotel’s philosophy and methodology.
Divorce
Hotel

31. ETER9 is a social network that relies on AI to communicate with and
through your counterpart -a virtual self that lives, learns, interacts, and
posts content, even after you’re dead.
Eternity
Within
Reach

32. Dowdy flowers in a dull vase next to a pine coffin? Over our dead body!
Visser & Meijwaard, Studio KnockOut and Linda Nieuwstad present a
colorful alternative for the farewell. Because a last impression can be left
only once.
Kassiewijle
Aesthetics of
Death

33. A growing number of people are experimenting with microdoses of
psychedelics and nootropics to increase cognitive function. Substances
can be purchased along with a drug kit test from the dark web using
bitcoin.
An Open
Source
Cure

34. Watsi, GoFundMe, GiveForward, etc., the list goes on for websites
dedicated to crowdsourcing experimental medical treatments.
Crowd
Fund
it!

35. Algorithms exploit the flexible booking option to continuously book and
rebook hotel rooms for the cheapest price. The German startup
generates revenue by taking 20% of any money saved, meaning it’s always
incentivized to find the cheapest deal.
Dreamcheaper.com

36. Molecular biophysics PhD and postdoc researcher at NASA, Josiah
Zayner, is best known for his Indiegogo campaign to provide people
CRISPR kits to alter bacterial DNA. In February of 2016, Zayner performed
a full body micro biome transplant on himself, successfully curing his IBS.
Biohacker
and Scientist

37. A University of Toronto biotechnology startup dedicated to providing
dieticians and their clients comprehensive, reliable, genomic information to
improve health through personalized nutrition based on their genetic profile.
Nutrigenomics
Inc.

38. Driftscape is a proposal by the global architectural firm HOK for a fleet of
drones to serve as portable hotels. Built from polymer reinforced structures,
using plumbing and power via systems developed by the aerospace industry,
the unit’s pneumatic support anchors would allow the craft to perch on any
terrain without impacting the site.
Drift
Scape

39. Following Mylan’s purchasing of the rights to Epipen in 2007 and their
subsequent raising the price from $57 to $318 USD, the medical hacking
collective, Four Thieves Vinegar, continue their mission to make medicine free
and have created and uploaded Epipencil, a simple version of the Epipen.
Four Thieves
Vinegar

40. This technology determines the rate of drug release and can include multiple
types of drugs for any desired release profile.
3d
Polymer
Fab

41. How we want to die – represents the most important and costly conversation
America isn’t having. The website has gathered medical and wellness leaders
to invite us to gather friends and family, fill a table, and start a conversation.
Death
Over
Dinner

42. Themes & Clusters

43. “
To be timeless you have to
think really far into the future,
not next year, not in two years,
but 20 years minimum.
Philippe Stark

44. Health monitoring goes out of
clinic
Virtual systems change
geographies of services
Living longer...but better?
A free market shaped by
consumers
On-demand expectations
Economic pressure as an
aging demographic lives
longer
Future Scenario Constraints:
Physician Assisted Suicide

45. Shifts: Physician Assisted Suicide
public > private realm
taboo > ritual
passive > active engagement with death
governed > accessible

46. Physician Assisted Suicide
> A shift from private to
public realm
What happens when assisted
suicide is taken out of the
hospital and into shared
spaces?
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/ Who or what is impacted?
/ What are the implications?
/ What are the possibilities?

47. “
The best way to predict the
future is to design it.
Buckminster Fuller

48. Thanks!
Feel free to contact us.
jferguson@ideacouture.com
ekeshet@ideacouture.com
Elinor Keshet
Innovation Strategist & Service Design
Idea Couture
Jamie Ferguson
Design & Foresight Strategist
Idea Couture