Social Design Fiction. New Methods for the Design of Emerging Technology.

There is no shortage of Emerging Technologies all vying for our attention; a recent example of this is 3D Printing. However, a great deal of this technology fails to deliver on its potential. The implications of these technologies on our everyday lives are often very difficult to envision and even more difficult to predict, so the difficult questions surrounding social adoption and the domestication of these technologies are often absent from the discussion. We describe new design methodologies that seek to resolve this issue and discuss existing studies in the ‘real world’, to highlight the key challenges and opportunities for this method. We then describe the findings of two workshops, to discover how the public envisage they will engage with 3D Printing technology in the future. Ultimately, this paper highlights how Design Fiction can contribute to resolving key social challenges associated with the widespread adoption and exploitation of emerging technology.