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Inspirations & Mindset

Is UX still a creative field? What down to earth designers should know about speculative design.

September 4, 2023 10:00 AM
Power Talk
🇬🇧 English
Bratysława 1

About

Creativity is considered a crucial characteristic of successful UX designers. However, more often than not, we rely on established patterns and frameworks to find practical, tried-and-true solutions instead of exploring new frontiers. While this approach may work for the present, we miss the opportunity to shape the future. Can we do better? In this talk, I will explore the role of speculative design and how it can influence both short-term operations and long-term strategy, as well as how this practice can be applied in the UX process.

Talk by

Photo of Michał Dorosz, Lead UX Designer at Unit4
Michał Dorosz
Lead UX Designer at Unit4

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From the recording

Talk in brief

A challenge to the narrow, incremental form of creativity that can emerge when UX is optimized around short delivery cycles and predictable output. The talk proposes speculative design as a complementary practice for finding future problems, not a replacement for everyday problem solving. Designers can choose a plausible medium-term horizon, describe a preferred future, and work backward to the conditions that would make it possible. Radical concepts also shift the range of ideas an organization considers acceptable, even when the most extreme proposal is never built. The practical advice is to challenge assumptions, watch for signals of change beyond the current product, and explore the social implications of today’s design decisions with bold questions.

Key takeaways

  1. 01

    Recognize the limits of incremental creativity

    Short delivery cycles can produce useful local improvements while pulling designers away from larger product and societal questions.

    Watch from 3:29
  2. 02

    Use speculative design to find future problems

    Exploring an imagined interaction can reveal questions and consequences before the corresponding product category fully exists.

    Watch from 5:34
  3. 03

    Enrich ordinary practice rather than replace it

    Speculative methods add problem finding, debate, and possibility to the existing responsibilities of practical product design.

    Watch from 7:26
  4. 04

    Work backward from a preferable medium-term future

    A horizon of roughly five to ten years is distant enough for abstraction but grounded enough to connect with present decisions.

    Watch from 8:45
  5. 05

    Expand what the organization considers acceptable

    Introducing a genuinely radical concept can move the boundaries of discussion and make a formerly difficult idea feel practical.

    Watch from 10:59
Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

Delivery systems can narrow a designer’s field of view

UX roles have become more specialized as organizations mature, while delivery frameworks reward predictable output and short-term progress. Those changes help teams manage complexity, but they can also separate designers from the larger system and future direction. Creativity still exists inside each sprint; the concern is that it becomes limited to improvements whose boundaries were already defined elsewhere.

Watch from 1:00

Incremental work is useful without being visionary

Small fixes and optimizations can materially improve a product and should not be dismissed. They rarely change the premise of the product, however, because they begin from the current system and its immediate goals. A team seeking a larger shift needs time and methods for imagining alternatives, identifying problems that do not yet have names, and debating which future is worth pursuing.

Watch from 3:29

Speculative artifacts create questions before requirements

An early concept for immersive media did not solve a validated interface problem in the modern product sense. It explored how people might interact when surrounded by information and what that condition could mean. Such work makes a possible future discussable. Its value lies in revealing social and interaction questions that later technologies may make urgent, not in predicting a finished product accurately.

Watch from 5:34

Backcasting connects imagination with present action

A useful speculative horizon is far enough away to loosen current assumptions but close enough to remain connected to recognizable forces. Designers can describe a preferable scenario five or ten years ahead, then ask what would need to become true for it to exist. Working backward turns an abstract future into present choices, risks, experiments, and signals worth monitoring.

Watch from 8:45

A radical proposal can change the range of debate

An organization evaluates ideas within an implicit window of what feels reasonable. Presenting a concept beyond that boundary may not lead to its implementation, but it can make the edge of the previous window appear less extreme. Designers can use this effect responsibly to challenge assumptions, while still examining who benefits, who bears risk, and whether the future being normalized is desirable.

Watch from 10:59
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