Joskaudė Pakalkaitė

Thesis title

Hand-drawn Provocations: Unconventional Strategies of Using Illustrated Narratives for Innovation and Speculative Design Practice 

Abstract

This thesis explores how the use of illustrated narratives can spark discussion on less noisy digital interfaces and enhance the user experience, provide insights for the design process, and create opportunities for large information technology companies that use design fiction to innovate (Bleecker 2009; Dunne and Raby 2013; Michaud 2020; Michaud and Appio 2022). This practice research project adapts the research through design approach and the use of design fiction. The project’s first phase applies ‘The Poetics of Design Fiction’ framework to identify design challenges, generate proposals, and produce ‘what if’ scenarios, fictional prototypes, user manuals, and illustrated narratives (Markussen and Knutz 2013). The second phase focuses on the use of the expert review method to facilitate discussions with industry professionals (Nielsen and Molich 1990; Nielsen 1994). This is used as a strategy to test methodological advances. 

This project contributes new knowledge to four methodological aspects of the fields of illustration, research through design, user interface design and user experience design, as well as innovation studies. First, the project shows that the use of illustrated narratives can spark discussion, which provides validation and a framework for illustrators and graphic designers (Bleecker 2009; Dunne and Raby 2013). Second, this demonstrates that illustrated narratives can also act as provocations which advances research through design domain and provides a validation for those employing it in practice research. One of this project’s significant findings is that unconventional design approaches, such as design fiction and illustration, can be used to develop user interfaces. The use of illustrated narratives also shows that they facilitate usability and accessibility evaluations of user interface designs in the same way as conventional user interface and user experience approaches. Lastly, this study contributes new knowledge by showing that illustrative narratives can provoke discussions that identify innovation opportunities for big tech companies.