Three themes to think about future technologies
A review of technology predictions that were made for the year 2020 and how these can help designers imagine the future
From the holodeck to flying cars, the future always was a fascinating subject to think about. After all, who doesn’t like to imagine the future, makeup scenarios, and make predictions about how cool it could be? As the new year starts, now could be just the right time for designers to start imagining the next decades when it comes to digital technologies. But where to start this reflection? What if we could start imagining the future by first looking at the past? Let’s start by looking at a short review of predictions that were made by authors and researchers about how they imagined the state of technology for the year 2020. Then, I’ll move on with three themes for designers to start thinking about the digital future based on how these predictions align with the year we just passed.
How we imagined 2020
By the late 2000s, authors and research units had tried to predict how technology would evolve through articles and reports that described projections of what the tech scene would look like in 2020. They, unsurprisingly, imagined a great rise in cloud computing in the digital world and a massive expansion of Big Data¹. It was also projected that the personal information created by users would be much less than the information collected on users, thus giving more and more space to the defense and security of information². Thinking about security, some had even predicted the use of quantum cryptography systems to ensure the safety of user data³. Others, who were more utopian, had visualized a digital universe where identity theft and cyber terrorism would have disappeared due to biometric security⁴.
There were also forecasts on the integration of bioinformatics, highly advanced intelligent robots into people’s daily lives, and even everyday clothes with built-in computers or other types of computerized items to wear⁵. They also imagined that technologies would have been so omnipresent that they would have completely changed the way people shop or obtain services. For instance, they imagined that online shopping and telemedicine would be part of the usual practices⁶. Finally, digital technologies and mobile devices were generally so imagined as ubiquitous, that a research group at Microsoft stated that in 2020, « it may not be possible to realize all of our goals, ambitions and aspirations without using a computer or computing in one way or another »⁷.
But, what about now?
As 2020 has just come to an end, we can easily recognize many forecasted elements in our current world. Access to technologies has never been as easy, widespread, and omnipresent as it is today. Take the time to look around yourself. How many computing devices are within 2 meters from you? How many websites have you visited only today? What have you experienced online in the last 10 minutes?
It’s easy to see that technologies are now deeply integrated into our daily lives. As the Microsoft research group forecasted in 2008, we can’t really deny that we do now need a form of computing to accomplish our daily tasks and goals. In their report, the research group had emphasized that « this binding of computing to our daily activities will in turn affect our values, goals and aspirations »⁸. That highlights the idea that technologies are not neutral. They affect values, standards, expectations, objectives, routines, but they also affect the behaviors, interactions, and experiences of the users⁹. That necessity for technology in daily users’ activities emphasizes a strong need for designers to think about what and why they design. After all, by designing everyday human-technology interactions, designers become the ones who have a big power in affecting people’s behaviors, values, and goals. And because they make design choices every day, they also have a key role in shaping the future of technologies in a user-centric way.
Three themes for reflection
Looking back at the forecasts that were made for the year 2020 and how these mostly match our technological reality, I thought the beginning of 2021 could be just the good time for us designers to start thinking about the future decades to come. In the end, engaging with what has been said in the past about our present time allows us to approach the years to come with a new and different perspective. Based on this, here are three themes to feed your thoughts on your journey to imagining the future of technologies:
1. Ethical design
As technologies are now everywhere and integrated into our daily activities, it’s necessary to initiate a reflection on the things that will be valuable in the future and how these things could impact positively and negatively people. As the digital world has become more and more monitored and tracked, what could respectful, transparent, and secure digital products look like in the future? What could be a good use of technology? What could be a bad one? How future technologies could impact people’s behaviors, habits, values? How can we design today to make sure we, designers, create respectful and ethical products and technologies that will remain in the future? Think about what need would really be met with this new technology? What would it be used for? Who would it be for? Why would we want to see that technology in our future? In short, thinking about an ethical design for the future starts by thinking about responsible and respectful design, but also about the consequences for the people who will use the technologies.
2. Social interactions
As humans are social beings and human to human interactions are key to our happiness, it can be interesting to start thinking about how technologies could be used to make more space for meaningful social interactions. Instead of automating and replacing all human to human interactions with solutions that involve no human at all, can future technologies be used in a way to make human to human interactions more profound and pleasant? How technologies can truly benefit people in their social interactions? What are the unpleasant social experiences that could be eased with technological means? What are the ones that are worth living and significant? In the end, thinking about how human to human social interactions could be improved is also thinking about a happy and meaningful future.
3. The why
To start imagining the future, we must also think about why technologies can or will evolve. This begins with a broader view and a conception of the technological world as an ecosystem. What changes in the world can we anticipate that will eventually create new needs? What could drastically change in other spheres of the world (economy, health, environment, education, etc.) that will impact the technological sphere? Thinking about why technologies can and will change means to look around and keep an eye on the present. What are the technologies or digital products that are part of our world today that should truly be kept in the future? Is there something we should keep as is, without changing anything about it? Or what do we have today that could be optimized or improved? In short, technological advancement should not be seen as an end in itself, but rather have a “why”, a reason to exist, and to evolve.
So, now that we have just completed the year 2020 and started a new one, we have a good idea of the state of the current technologies and how that state aligns with the predictions made in the past. Now that I’ve discussed three themes to start thinking about the future, I invite you to take some time in 2021 to imagine the next decades and get inspired by that vision. After all, it’s by imagining the future that we’ll be able to base our daily design decisions to slowly shape the future digital world in a way that makes sense to us!
Happy imagining in 2021!
References
[1]: Gantz, J., & Reinsel, D. (2012). The digital universe in 2020: Big Data, Bigger Digi tal Shadows, and Biggest Growth in the Far East. IDC & EMC Corporation. Framingham: IDC.
[2]: ibid.
[3]: López Peláez, A., & Kyriakou, D. (2008, Janvier 25). Robots, genes and bytes: technology development and social changes towards the year 2020. Technological Forecasting & Social Change , 75, pp. 1176–1201.
RAND Corporation. (2006). Global Technology Revolution 2020: Technology Trends and Cross-Country Variation. RAND. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation research.
[4]: Grey, P., & Hovav, A. Z. (2007). The IS Organization of the Future: Four Scenarios for 2020. Information Systems Management,, 24, 113–120.
[5]: López Peláez, A., & Kyriakou, D. (2008, Janvier 25). Robots, genes and bytes: technology development and social changes towards the year 2020. Technological Forecasting & Social Change , 75, pp. 1176–1201.
RAND Corporation. (2006). Global Technology Revolution 2020: Technology Trends and Cross-Country Variation. RAND. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation research.
[6]: Grey, P., & Hovav, A. Z. (2007). The IS Organization of the Future: Four Scenarios for 2020. Information Systems Management,, 24, 113–120.
[7]: Harper, R., Rodden, T., Rogers, Y., & Sellen, A. (2008). Being Human : Human-computer interaction in the year 2020. Cambridge, England: Microsoft Research Ltd, p. 31.
[8]: Ibid. p.31.
[9]: Robertson, T. (2006). Ethical issues in interaction design. Ethics and information technology, 8(2), pp. 49–59.
Swierstra, T., & Waelbers, K. (2012). Designing a Good Life: A Matrix for the Technological Mediation of Morality. Sci Eng Ethics, 18, 157–172.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2006, Mai). Materializing Morality Design Ethics and Technological Mediation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31(3), pp. 361–380.
