What makes a good future prototype?

What did we learn from the sketches?

All in all; a good future prototype leads to collective visions and conversations of change. It has a clear theme to focus on, it exists in a place that is natural for the theme, it makes the future visions tangible and experientable through physical elements or artifacts and above all, it engages different groups of people in constructive dialogues. The main target group for this whole call is key players who can affect system transformation, but we hope that the prototypes itself will engage a wide audience of different groups and individuals that are relevant for the theme of the prototype.

Below we gather some general advice based on learnings from the sketches on what makes a good application for building a future prototype:

Theme and imagination

•  A story that clearly communicates your vision and what topics or questions you want to explore through your prototype.
• A story grounded in evidence, trends, megatrends or weak signals on changes that we are already seeing.
• A good framework for a story can be based on the experiential futures ladder, describing a setting/location and a scenario on what kind of future we live in, as well as a concrete situation with people, stuff or artifacts.

Place

• Place is in line with the story/imagination for experiencing the visions. For example, future of train-travelling could rather be experienced in a train rather than on a shopping mall or future of health care in a hospital rather than in a museum
• Think rather everyday places where different people pass by frequently, such as a post office, bus stop, town square and so on, than a setting for entertainment (such as a museum or a theatre) to enhance the feeling temporarily stepping into the future in day-to-day life.

Thing(s) and experiences

•  A future prototype includes something tangible, immersive, and multisensory in order to create feelings and interpretations.
• A Future prototype is not meant to be a functional product or business idea, but a representation of a piece of a future, that should awaken thoughts of desired and undesired futures.
• Tell us how you see the public can experience the prototype - who should experience it, how do they access it, what do they do, what do they feel and think and so on.

Capturing

• An experience can be wonderful as it is, but the goal of a future prototype is also to capture different people’s thoughts, worries, reflections and dreams about the futures. How would you design the process to do this?
• Imagine that by taking a photo or video of people visiting your prototype, we can see how people are interacting with it and experiencing it. We hope to see something else than people sitting down and talking/listening/watching.

This is a check list of things that we feel makes a good future prototype. It is meant as a general guidance and we hope that it will clarify our thinking. Obviously, each proposal is different and unique, so please feel free to interpret this list from your perspective.

If you are one of the applicants in the phase 2 of the call and want more support in your writing process, join our digital writing-rooms on Monday 4 April at 17-18.