One Way to Approach Responsible Design? Think Like a Futurist.

The other night I was walking to my car after enjoying a “till the traffic dies down” glass of wine after work, when a sign caught my eye. In chrome letters over a storefront door saying “OZONE CRYOTHERAPY” and the reason this struck me is that this was the very street where I used to come as a child to watch first run movies in the little one-screen theater that used to be a few doors down (which is now a late night club, naturally).

I was literally standing in my own distant future.

This was particularly striking in light of the fact I’d recently taken Jane McGonigal’s brilliant Stanford weekend workshop titled “How to Think Like a Futurist.” (You can watch her related Ted x talk via the link at the end of this piece.) For the bulk of the day Jane explained to us that futurists don’t predict the future, they imagine any number of possible futures. (For the record, the time frame they tend to use to define “the future” is 10 years.)

Futurists look for signals – things you notice or items in the news that hint at a particular future – and work with “strong opinions, lightly held.”

I won’t go into the entirety of the learnings from the workshop (I’ll list some references at the end of this piece), but this quote is one of the more memorable takeaways:

In dealing with the future, it is far more important to be imaginative than to be right. – Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock

Ms. McGonigal talked about how Uber was first thought to be the pinnacle of innovation for personal ridesharing transportation (“like Uber for X” was repeated ad nauseum) but now it’s morphed into self-driving car technology. In other words, the future is a moving target. It's the designer's job to spend some time thinking through possible futures where opportunities for misuse and harm emerge.

So I’ve been encouraging people I talk to about responsible design and making your design safe, to think not just in the here and now, but some years ahead. After all, some solutions to problems take time to figure out (take Facebook’s new AI platform cleanup effort, for example) so just like Detroit plans years ahead for new model releases, we should be thinking as many years ahead as we can.

This past week’s news offered some fascinating story lines that are well-served by having a future-based focus. And I’ll list some ideas for thought exercises for each one.

Signals and scenarios

It’s no secret that the internet and society have become fully intertwined, from socializing to commerce to finances to politics. The possibilities for unintended use are just as manifold as the ways that humans on this planet are different from each other.

I’ve chosen the 3 most obvious ones I could think of – you can surely think of many more topics to explore with your team. And that’s literally what I’m suggesting here. Take an hour or two and bring your team together for a whiteboard or sticky notes session and think like a futurist about the product you design every day.

The future of online content

Some key storylines that have sparked conversations in the news this week, all centering on the topic of unreliable online content. If your product does or will someday accommodate the uploading of video or audio of any kind, these are signals for you.

Just this week, an AI startup called Dessa released a completely fake set of audio recordings modeled to sound exactly like radio host Joe Rogan.

Also this week, Snapchat released a filter that lets users “swap genders,” and while the results are somewhat cartoonish (and definitely gender stereotyped) the results are early-days impressive.

(Note: I no sooner typed this than spotted this article on the Snapchat filter already being used to “catfish” people)

So this is your thought exercise:

Does your product allow for video and/or audio uploads now, or do you foresee it down the road? The videos could be from job applicants, event speakers, household help contractors, you name it.

How could someone with bad intentions use technology available to everyone 2-5 years from now to upload a deceptive video and gain entry and access to your platform and/or business?

The future of online payments

Paying for a product is part of life, but how we are paying is rapidly evolving. Cryptocurrency is determined to punch its way into the mainstream; even Facebook wants into the party. And biometrics are rapidly making their way into the authentication step for payments.

Here is your thought exercise:

How will your users expect to pay for transactions through your product 5 years from now? Will you accommodate cryptocurrency? If you use biometrics (thumbprint, facial recognition, etc.), how will you make sure that data is kept safe and in compliance with privacy regulations, and how will you talk to your user about it?

The future of YOU

Ok, switching to offline, and bringing this thing full circle to the beginning of this piece, and imagining your own future. Assuming you don’t meet an untimely end, you – and all of us – WILL experience a level of disability if you aren’t already living with one or more. I wrote about this to some extent here and here.

This past week Don Norman, the principle voice for design usability, wrote this powerful piece (and I implore you to read it): “I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me.” In it, he talks about how design has treated anyone beyond the age of say, 40, as a non-essential user. “We are not a niche market,” Mr. Norman says. In fact, numbers of aging are (forgive me) booming.

Apple Watch's packaging includes these incredibly difficult to read (but elegant!) instruction sheets.

In the first third of your life, disability from aging seems a far-off sketch of a concept. But face it: it’s real and affecting way more of your users than you realize. As Mr. Norman tells us: “Vision deteriorates...hearing decreases” and mobility gradually suffers as well.

For this exploration, there’s no better resource than Microsoft Design’s Persona Spectrum, which you can learn about here.

There are two ways to approach thought experience in this space:

1.    Picture yourself 10 years from now, and imagine an unexpected event happens to you that impacts your ability to use this product in some way. Tell that story in as much detail as possible.

2.    Picture yourself as a senior, and again build that story out in as much detail as possible, including a scenario that involves a sense of urgency for using your product.

Once you’ve spent time with a futurist, it’s impossible to not think that way about your work to some extent. Thinking about the sheer number of futures that could happen – as well as the breathtaking pace the future rushes at us – makes you certain you’re not really doing your job otherwise.

Resources:

Kevin Kelly’s book: “The Inevitable – Understanding The 12 Techological Forces That Will Shape Our Future”

Jane McGonigal Ted x talk: “The Future is Dark (And That’s a Good Thing)”

Stephanie Lucas is a designer at LinkedIn focused on privacy and trust. She is an admitted data privacy nerd. Opinions and ideas expressed are her own.