Anna Whicher

Design Fictions: A Tool for Debating Societal, Legal and Ethical Aspects of Personal and Pervasive Health Systems

The potential benefits offered by health-related technologies are counterpoised by the societal, legal and ethical challenges concomitant with the pervasive monitoring of people necessitated by such technological interventions. Through the ProtoPolicy research project we explored the production and use of design fictions as a tool for debating the societal, legal and ethical dimensions of personal health systems. Two design fictions were co-created and tested in a series of design workshops with community groups based in Lancashire and Cornwall, UK. A thematic analysis of a debate among older people from the Lancaster group on the Smart Object Therapist design fiction highlighted societal and ethical issues relevant to personal health system design. We conclude that ethics like ‘usability’ may be usefully based on engagement with directly or indirectly implicated publics and should not be designed into innovation by experts alone.

Mapping Design for Innovation Policy in Wales and Scotland

Abstract In 2014, design featured in 15 of the 28 European Member States’ innovation policies. Design strategies were in operation in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France and Latvia. The European Commission has also developed an Action Plan for Design-driven Innovation. While design is gathering momentum as a driver of innovation in EU and national policy, there is a gap at regional levels. In Wales and Scotland there is infrastructure to support enterprises to use design, so arguably there is an opportunity for them to lead the regional design policy agenda in Europe. However, this raises the question of how to develop effective policies for design. Innovation policy is based on analysis of the Innovation Ecosystem; can the concept of Design Innovation Ecosystems be useful for design policy development? Through four Design Policy Workshops and surveys in Wales and Scotland, this paper presents the concept of Design Innovation Ecosystems as an approach to inform policymaking for design-driven innovation.