Co-speculating and designing policies for digital transformation in manufacturing

If one was to search for “participatory speculative design” in Google Scholar in 2018 only two matches would appear. A search today, in early 2025, retrieves 184 results. Perhaps uncertain times cause people to dedicate more time and effort in thinking about our possible futures. Although a concerning sign with regards to the present, being troubled about the future is a positive sign for those who believe that we should conceptualise our systems so that they can be more resilient to future unknowns. 

A significant threat to our future, especially in manufacturing, are labour market shocks (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Unit G.1 et al., 2023). Realising that the design of digital tools for manufacturing has a direct impact on workers’ wellbeing and the creation of good quality jobs in manufacturing within Europe, experts have been calling for the involvement of industrial operators in the design of these technologies to guarantee that they are worker-centred (Ibidem). However, involving manufacturing workers in the participatory design processes is easier said than done (Ardito et al., 2014). 

The Fictions Lab intended to contribute to this effort by designing and implementing a process of participatory design with manufacturing workers focused on speculating about the future of digital technology at work, with the goal of providing policy recommendations and testing methods of participation and speculation. The lab adopted a Lead User approach (von Hippel, 1976) working with same group of workers from company dst throughout the entire process. First, the lab team gave workers training on emerging digital technologies and then embarked on a series of workshops to envision possible futures and to derive recommendations for policy based on our reflections. Critical for these workshops was the design of activities and artefacts which would 1) help suspend disbelief (Wakkary et al., 2015) about possible futures, and 2) help participants express themselves. 

Here are examples of things that the Fictions Lab did: 

• Bringing future factors into present day. To represent future important factors, such as ageing of the workforce, increase in migrations or lack of natural resources, the lab team created speculative materials to make believe that the company had taken action to face these changes. To make these actions seem real, the team copied the look and feel of posters which are currently used in the company to communicate with workers. Then, workers received large pictures of their workplaces and did a collage to represent what would be different in their environment now that these actions were being implemented. 

  

• Bringing technology into present day. The team asked dst for a few of their company sweaters to build a diegetic prototype that integrated several technologies and features that workers seemed to have asked for in one of the workshops. By presenting this real-looking garment, workers were easily able to consider what the consequences of using that technology would be in their everyday lives. 

  

• Artefacts for recommendations. Rather than asking workers at the end of the process to list policy recommendations, the lab team designed a creative exercise in which workers were asked to build recommendations to different stakeholders in different formats: book covers for employers, a board game for technologists, demonstration banners for law makers, and a message in a bottle for future generations. These artefacts, especially the game, allowed workers to freely speak their minds and later served as a boundary object around which they could discuss serious issues regarding how digital technology might affect the quality of their jobs and their wellbeing. 

  

• Making of. Throughout the project, the lab collected footage of the workshops and the artefacts and edited them into a “making of” video which was shown to the workers, and we built an exhibition with all the process and artefacts. The video was very impactful in terms of proving participants with a sense of purpose and with pride. 

  

By the end of the process, Fraunhofer AICOS team, leading the lab, brought the dst lead users together with external specialists in work psychology, ergonomics, design, philosophy, and technology to collaboratively assess the process designed and implemented for worker participation in the Fictions Lab. The participants from this session agreed that interactions mediated by designed artefacts were very beneficial to the process because they helped participants envision possible futures, thinking about their consequences, they enabled lead users to express themselves easily, and they brought lightness and fun to exercises which would otherwise be very difficult to do. Rather than having a fixed schedule, working with lead users allowed the lab team to tailor exercises from one workshop to the next and respond to the uncertainty that comes with participatory design. As design researchers, being able to tailor the workshop goals, structure and stimuli to this group of lead users led the lab to a rewarding experience of understanding the importance of crafting bespoke materials for the targeted audiences and goals. 

Article by Ana Correia de Barros (Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS) 

References 

• Ardito, C., Buono, P., Caivano, D., Costabile, M. F., Lanzilotti, R., & Dittrich, Y. (2014). Human-Centered Design in Industry: Lessons from the Trenches. Computer, 47(12), 86–89. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2014.355 
• European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Unit G.1, Stres, Š., Gołębiowska-Tataj, D., Walz, R., Dixson-Declève, S., Schwaag Serger, S., Balland, P.-A., Isaksson, D., Martins, F., Dunlop, K., Renda, A., Charveriat, C., Mir Roca, M., Pedersen, G., Soete, L., Huang, A., & Christophilopoulos, E. (2023). Industry 5.0 and the future of work: Making Europe the centre of gravity for future good-quality jobs. ESIR Focus Paper (Publications Office of the European Union). https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/685878 
• von Hippel, E. (1976). The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process. Research Policy, 5(3), 212–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(76)90028-7 
• Wakkary, R., Odom, W., Hauser, S., Hertz, G., & Lin, H. (2015). Material speculation: Actual artifacts for critical inquiry. Proceedings of The Fifth Decennial Aarhus Conference on Critical Alternatives, 97–108. https://doi.org/10.7146/aahcc.v1i1.21299