Critical approach to the Conscious Design of Technological Artefacts
_Societal challenges
_Human Behaviour
_Technological artefacts
To face these global challenges and manage the technological and scientific development, it will be needed to “reinvent the human”, and this process will need to imply critical reflection at all levels of transformation, at the species level, “by means of story and shared dream experience” (Berry, 1999).
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The critical design practices and theories, offer principles able to trigger critical thinking, and help in understanding the possibilities, limitations, constraints, and application of technologies, with a purpose to design more consciously technological artefacts. This research is a part of a PhD research "Design Fiction 4 Critical Thinking: Designing Consciously Technological Artefacts to tackle Aware Behaviours" conducted in a period from November 2018 to March 2022 at Politecnico di Milano Design Department. The focus of this PhD research is on technological artefacts able to tackle aware behaviours in humans (i.e., sustainable behaviours).
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This research aims at exploring and defining new approaches for conscious design of technological artefacts, founded on Design Fiction principles considered able to trigger critical thinking. Design Fiction enables us to use the future as a medium for speculation about what could be, and accordingly approach critically to reality as a field of possible actions.
Design Fiction is “a strategy for more explicitly attending to the feedback loop between fictional imagined futures and actual technology design.” (Bleeker, 2010) Through design fiction principles, such as diegetic prototypes and anticipatory scenarios we can investigate the potential future applications and implications of technological artefacts, complex systems of relations in human - artefact - natural environment assemblages, explore new physical forms, experiences, and interaction rituals, and reflect critically about the possible barriers and enablers of human action.
The scenarios are the visions of alternative world and the diegetic prototypes are the protagonist of that world. The diegetic prototypes explore the relationships between humans, technology, society, and natural environemnt.
Throughout a Research Through Design besed methodology, this PhD tries to answer:
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How can critical thinking be triggered in design research and practice to design more consciously the technological artefacts and tackle aware behaviours in users?
_Methodology applied in this research
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About the author
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Mila Stepanovic, born in Belgrade, and based in Milan, graduated in Industrial Design in 2012 and from Master of Science in Design and Engineering in 2016. She was a PhD candidate in Design at Politecnico di Milano from 2018 to 2021.
Her research is mainly focused on critical design theories and practices, design for behavioural change, and its relation to sustainability and the role of technology. She is organising different workshops on designing more consciously technological artefacts through design fiction (What if? scenarios and fictional prototypes).
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