Artefact

Design

UX 2030:
VR as a unifying medium


Holger Kuehnle
Holger Kuehnle

The UX 2030 Series

As emerging technology becomes an increasingly ubiquitous part of our lives, the design decisions we make today will shape how these technologies impact the world over the decade to come.

This series envisions how we might apply emerging technology in specific industries to create positive impact. We’ll explore what might accelerate or hinder these realities and the key risk areas and unintended consequences to consider.

Illustration by Laura Carr + Paige Ormiston

With society seemingly more divided than ever, coming to a shared sense of reality, empathy, and purpose is a public imperative. While we often think of virtual reality (VR) in an entertainment or enterprise context, the emotional power and behavioral impact of the unprecedented realism VR environments of the future offer can create enormous opportunities for public education and consensus-building.

We imagine a 2030 where responsibly designed VR experiences are a unifying medium that help people understand complex circumstances and grasp the impact of invisible challenges through tangible, hyper-personalized experiences bolstered by technology like 3D environmental mapping, AI, and machine learning. So how do we get there – and what risks will we face along the way?

Tackling the tragedy of the commons

People have trouble comprehending slow, distributed change. If a process doesn’t happen at a pace or visibility that we can perceive, we may not believe it is occurring at all. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how many people find it hard to grasp the idea of a virus that causes preventable deaths and the impact of individual actions on transmission.

What if we could see someone breathe out virus droplets and the surfaces they land on? What if we could visualize first-hand how the virus spreads in enclosed spaces, and who would become infected or even die? What if that happened over the course of seconds, not weeks? And what if – rather than seeing the impact on anonymous avatars – you were experiencing this environment with your own family, friends, and coworkers? The evolution of VR can make this vision a reality.

VR is the captivating next frontier of data visualization. It has the power to make the intangible visible, and the consequences of action – or inaction – immediate. Just as the humble bar chart helped people compare the scale and relationships of numbers centuries ago, VR has the potential to communicate the effects of our actions not just on ourselves today, but on complex systems over time. Over the next decade, VR as a visualization mechanism will create opportunities for society to become educated on issues that are slow, complex, and require collective shifts in behavior – such as pandemics or climate change.

Visualizing the environment, emotion, and time

VR has the unique ability to manipulate environment, emotion, and time. As VR evolves over the next 10 years, it will be able to virtualize the real world into highly believable and persuasive copies. What good might we build with this technology?

Used responsibly and with intention, VR can bring alignment and consensus to contentious or difficult-to-understand topics. Imagine an educational VR game that teaches the impact of individual behavior on the outcomes of a global pandemic. The experience puts you into everyday situations in your own life and maps the direct impact of your actions on virus transmission. You take public transport, meet with coworkers, enjoy a couple drinks with friends at your favorite crowded bar, and go home to your family. At each of these points, you have the option to make a decision: Do you wear a mask? Do you get on the crowded bus? Do you sit indoors at the bar?

Environment

By 2030, VR will utilize real environments mapped in 3D with a level of accuracy that will make them essentially indistinguishable from the real world. We are already seeing a tremendous amount of progress in environmental mapping techniques and data, and what started as Google Street View is now expanding to map indoor environments as well. Consumer devices increasingly include depth-sensing cameras that can generate 3D representations of not only individual objects but entire buildings.

Moreover, VR is not constrained to the limitations of the real world. A VR environment could transport you from interacting with people on the ground to being literally high in the sky, observing how the other people who you interacted with go about their days. Perhaps your actions influence how others act after observing you. You can follow their decisions – good and bad – to see the role we all play in exhibiting responsible behaviors for the good of the community.

Emotion

VR also offers feedback at an emotional level – one of its most powerful characteristics. When integrated with other emerging technologies, VR environments can impact our emotions and behavior both in the virtual and real world. Recent advancements in generative adversarial network algorithms for machine learning have created convincing reproductions of images, speech, and gestures of real living humans, called deepfakes. What if we applied that technology to generating personalized characters in a VR environment? By reproducing the people you care about in VR, the emotional connection you have to the experience will be much deeper.

Time

Another key feature of VR is the ability to compress time, amplifying subtle changes into concrete impact. What if you could immediately see the results of your decisions, for example in an infection rate score that demonstrates which of your actions have the direst consequences and which have minuscule impact at scale?

Because VR has the ability to compress time into a fast-paced experience, you could re-live your day again and again, varying the choices you make. In this Groundhog Day-like experience, the immediate feedback and ability to iterate on behavior can help you better recognize and learn the impact of your actions.

Addressing risk areas

Even if VR experiences are deliberately called out as “virtual” or “not real,” there is still a significant amount of “reality” that VR designers create with regard to how users experience and perceive these environments. The potential to significantly distort the truth raises several important ethical questions.

Misinformation

It is obvious that the ability to influence better behavior through manipulation of environment, emotion, and time may be used to influence people to commit bad behavior or actions that are not in their interest. We must assume that the existence of powerful technology means that it not only can, but will, be used for malicious purposes. The false information that is easily spread across social media today shows us that we can’t assume audiences will recognize truth from fiction in digital contexts. When VR is nearly indistinguishable from the real world, then those to whom “seeing is believing” are easily radicalized.

As designers and technologists, we need to hold ourselves accountable to responsible use of technology like VR. Creators of platforms that distribute and enable VR content must also establish content standards and ratings that flag inappropriate experiences or those that distort reality in ways that would have negative consequences. Twitter’s decision to flag misinformation surrounding the 2020 election is one example of an attempt to balance preventing the spread of dangerous misinformation while enabling ambitious goals of free speech.

Critically, as a society, we must teach and practice media and digital literacy, and foster the critical thinking skills to question the motivation of technology products.

The ethics of emotional manipulation

Simulating real humans through machine learning algorithms (like deepfakes) is already highly controversial today. Amplifying this in a VR context to influence people on an emotional level must face even more ethical scrutiny. Is it ethical to exploit people’s emotional attachments in order to influence their behavior? It seems that anti-smoking, anti-drunk driving, and even social impact campaigns already believe it is.

Yet it is challenging to argue that the preferable outcomes would in all cases justify the means. It may also be falsely based on the assumption of having a full understanding of what the truth is at all times, which we know isn’t always the case. If we manipulate people to behave in a way that we understand is preferable, what if that understanding of what’s preferable changes? Emotional influencing is not something that can be easily reversed once it has happened, so we have to proceed with caution, to say the least.

Data privacy

Data privacy is another critical issue that a VR environment based on the real world exacerbates. Is it ethical to use personal data about humans and environments to influence behavior? Where is the data gathered from? How would someone consent to having themselves or their home recreated by an algorithm in VR? What about shared or public spaces like your favorite bar or park?

Governments have begun introducing regulation in an attempt to address data protection concerns. For example, California passed a law in 2019 that prohibits distributing manipulated videos of political candidates within 60 days of an election. The question remains, however, of how enforceable such laws might be in practice, particularly as emerging technologies scale.

VR as a unifying medium

Historian Melvin Kranzberg’s First Law of Technology famously states, “Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” To realize the educational and unifying power of VR, we must recognize that it is our collective responsibility as designers, technologists, regulators, and consumers, to create and leverage VR experiences that align with our individual, societal, and collective good. We believe we can aim higher together and responsibly harness emerging technology to tackle the most pressing issues of our time and create a preferable future.





Read Next:

Futures Sketchbook:
Mobility 2030



Design

Creating a Culture of
Inclusion in Healthcare


Credit: The Gender Spectrum Collection

Photo credit: The Gender Spectrum Collection

The issue of inclusion has been central to the transformation of healthcare in 2020. While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated advancements in telehealth that brought greater and safer access to care to many, it has also exacerbated existing inequities faced by vulnerable populations such as seniors; people experiencing disabilities; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; LGBTQ+ individuals; non-English speakers; and those living in poverty.

Some 25% of Americans may not have the digital tools or literacy to access telehealth services, a population that often intersects with racial groups that face disparities in health and care. For decades, minority populations in the U.S. have received lower-quality health care than their white counterparts across comparable socioeconomic, age, and health statuses.

The complexity of the healthcare system makes change feel daunting at best and insurmountable at worst. While the system is slow to evolve, introducing more inclusive improvements in healthcare can create positive incremental change at a human level.

Artefact Strategy Director Felix Chang joined the Innovation Learning Network, Centura Health, and Design Thinking Exchange (DTX) for a digital exchange discussing how to foster a culture of inclusion in healthcare. With participants spanning Kaiser Permanente, Philips Healthcare and LA County Department of Health Services, the session explored actions that innovation leaders can take to create more inclusive health systems, products, or services. These were the key takeaways:

Strengthen processes and teams

Look for opportunities to integrate inclusive values within your organization at a process and intervention level. Are there ways to embed inclusive practices in workflows, tools, and existing partnerships such as patient advisory councils or cross-discipline decision-making?

When developing interventions, consider how to ensure diverse research participant composition, avoid making assumptions about patients, and take communities of use as experts in their experience. For example, the Group Health Research Institute introduced elements of co-creation by establishing a patient panel to guide the process of developing their SIMBA decision aid. The tool helps breast cancer patients better understand and make informed decisions on their breast cancer monitoring options. As part of the experience, patients are prompted with questions to capture their values and the factors that are most important to them (such as procedure risks, duration, and cost), giving them the agency to personalize their experience and prioritize what matters most in their specific situation.

Promote accountability

Developing a culture of inclusion is only effective when it is a shared responsibility. Establish explicit definitions, commitments, and plans to ensure transparency and actionable benchmarks.

This could be at a department, project, or initiative-level, such as setting quantifiable standards for more inclusive stakeholder and patient groups in planning initiatives, giving feedback on processes when in place, and prioritizing what to improve.

Good data mining and benchmarks for measurement can help identify gaps and areas that need more focus.

Normalize inclusion at a system level

People often avoid deviating from the norm, and working toward systemic change can be overwhelming. By sharing best practices, learnings, and case studies of success, you can begin to normalize a common culture of inclusion across your team or organization.

Create excitement and interest by spotlighting inclusive work in your team or field. How might you establish a system of shared successes and lessons learned? For example, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gates Ventures developed the Exemplars in Global Health platform, which gathers public health data and performance outcomes across the world in order to share best practices and learnings within the public health professional community. What would a similar practice look like for your team or organization? What are other examples from outside the healthcare industry that show the measurable impact of true inclusion?

Consistently celebrating how your organization and others are adopting inclusive practices creates a sense of community and shared purpose that can support continued action.

What action will you take?

Creating change in an entrenched system is neither quick nor easy, but each of us must take steps in our roles and spheres of influence that together can contribute to a sea change. By strengthening inclusive practices in teams and processes, promoting accountability, and normalizing a culture of inclusion, we can start to take important steps to creating healthcare experiences and outcomes that serve all people.





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How to take action
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Strategy

The future of business +
design is responsible


It is hard to imagine that it has been over a year since Business Roundtable released a revised Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. For many, the question was whether these statements and others in the same spirit truly represented the beginnings of a fundamental shift toward stakeholder capitalism, or whether it was all an exercise in PR. Then came the pandemic, widespread social unrest, and a declining economy, all wrapped in the unrelenting uncertainty of 2020. By Fall, the initial report card was mixed: early research found that signatories had not made significant progress toward these goals compared to peers engaged in business as usual.

One explanation is that transformational change frequently encounters obstacles in terms of organizational readiness, priorities, scope, and timing. It simply takes time. Consequently, even as leaders and the zeitgeist have embraced the vision of stakeholder capitalism, many organizations may lag behind in terms of their capacity to act on otherwise good intentions.

As we look ahead to 2021 and beyond, we believe that firms will need to demonstrate more concrete actions toward stakeholder centricity and a commitment to preferable futures – both in response to increasing external pressures and as a means of making organizations more resilient in the face of continued uncertainty.

So, how might we do that?

Designing a more responsible future

Human-centered design (HCD) is a starting point. Traditionally, this has meant engaging stakeholders and users, identifying challenges, unmet needs and opportunities, co-designing and prototyping solutions, and iterating throughout execution and delivery. As a first step toward stakeholder centricity, integrating more human-centered processes is a proven approach to creating more meaningful and relevant products, services, and interventions. But it’s not enough.

On its own, the strength of HCD is also a limitation. A disproportionate focus on users can create critical blind spots and limits our ability to consider impacts to other stakeholders. This can lead to the sort of significant negative externalities that we experience from products and services every day – for example the effects of social media on political polarization, the gig economy as a contributor to income inequality, delivery services and the environment, and so on. In each case, exceptionally good solutions lead to negative effects. Indeed, almost everything we make creates a long cascade of systemic impacts that shape the world around us, both immediately and over time.

Moving toward a more fair and inclusive form of capitalism will require that design and innovation leaders adopt a more holistic approach to shaping the future. In our own work, we have built on the strong foundation of HCD and expanded the definition of stakeholders to include users as well as others impacted by a product or policy, the commons, society as a whole, and even the planet. We also advocate a long-term perspective that brings futures literacy into the innovation process. This approach to stakeholders and futures requires the development of new mindsets and methods adapted from multiple disciplines – systems thinking, business design, foresight, and ethics, among others. We are calling this integrated approach to stakeholder centricity “responsible design.”

Responsible design means the products and services we create should account for impacts to all stakeholders – today and in the future.

The current state of responsible design

Responsible design is an emerging discipline, though we see evidence of the trend in movements related to ethical technology, the circular economy, healthcare, design for social change, and elsewhere. Even so, we wanted to better gauge whether these ideas were becoming mainstream in large organizations, and whether firms were investing time and resources in responsible design as a path toward corporate purpose and/or stakeholder capitalism. To answer this question – and to better understand potential barriers to change – we surveyed a group of 50 senior leaders in design and innovation, drawn from multiple industries including technology, healthcare, pharma, retail, and mobility.

Long-term thinking and outcomes-focused design

We asked participants to rank a series of responsible design attributes in terms of whether their organization would value it highly or not at all. These included “taking a long-term perspective,” “being cognizant of the wider impact of solutions,” “working toward preferable futures,” “understanding complex systems and root causes,” and “being inclusive of all stakeholders.” Using the same attributes, we then asked whether firms were devoting more or fewer resources to each compared to five years ago. Notable findings include the growing importance of thinking and planning in long timescales, and the importance of being more cognizant of impacts – both of which run counter to the “move fast and break things” ethos of the previous decade.

Stakeholders in theory vs. practice

Participants also ranked “inclusive of all stakeholders” as the least-valued and lowest-trending attribute, suggesting that stakeholder-centric thinking remains emergent compared to the more established mental models and practices of human-centered design. While there seems to be recognition that stakeholder capitalism itself represents a worthy ideal (60% of participants say that it is increasing in importance, when asked directly), our survey also revealed the lack of a common definition and a variety of interpretations of what it might look like in practice.

Barriers to organizational change

Other qualitative responses revealed a range of tensions between the attributes of responsible design and perceptions that such an approach would be slow, inefficient, or costly. Many organizations – particularly in technology – are aligned to values that may limit the near-term prioritization and adoption of responsible design (e.g., customer obsession, short-term results, data-driven decision making, etc.). This condition is exacerbated by differing priorities, incentives, and motives across departments and up and down the organization.

Looking ahead

Our research suggests that positive change is occurring and the trend toward responsible design and stakeholder capitalism will likely continue, particularly in light of the shifting global role of organizations and leadership amidst the larger backdrop of social, political, and economic uncertainty. As the pandemic has stressed so many global systems, we see an opportunity for new thinking and a more fundamental reset of business as usual. Now is the time.

We are also optimistic that the business case is clear, even as the transition to stakeholder capitalism is unevenly distributed and variously interpreted. Responsible design will enable firms to command greater influence over desired outcomes and actual impacts while better anticipating and managing risk. This will allow organizations to more effectively align corporate purpose, values, and actions, creating more durable brand value and attracting critical resources.

Lastly, we believe stakeholder centricity will change how we do innovation. It will be critical to better define the meaning of key mental models and concepts as a precursor to more ambitious organizational change. And we will need to create new tools and frameworks that help us do our work. This may take some time, and we should be patient in measuring progress toward these desirable goals, while continuing to advocate for change at all levels of the system.

A special thanks to Executive Creative Director Neeti Sanyal and Strategy Director Jeff Turkelson for their research support.





Read Next:

How to take action
toward inclusion in design



Event

Advocating for responsible
tech in your organization


When a feature launch or key deliverable is on the line, the last thing a product team wants to do is slow down – even when there might be a problem. In the face of breakneck deadlines and competing stakeholder priorities, how can you assess the impact of your work and advocate for a more intentional, ethical approach to technology development?

We know tech products have real consequences in the world. Designers and builders like you are increasingly at the forefront of a shift toward more responsible technology. Yet generating awareness and conversation around tech ethics in an organization can feel like an uphill battle, full-time job, and unchartered territory all rolled into one. That’s why Omidyar Network and Artefact partnered to create the Ethical Explorer Pack, a toolkit to help individuals and teams build technology that’s safer, healthier, fairer, and more inclusive for all.

In this webinar, Sarah Drinkwater, Director of Beneficial Technology at Omidyar Network, and Hannah Hoffman, Design Director at Artefact, share the thinking behind the Ethical Explorer Pack and how you can use the toolkit in a variety of situations during the product development life cycle. Download the free toolkit and learn how to advocate for more responsible tech in your organization, no matter your role.

Check out the resources shared by attendees below, and be sure to sign up for our Impact by Design event series to keep the conversation going.





Read Next:

How to take action
toward inclusion in design



Event

Empathy is Not Enough:
How to Take Action Toward Inclusion in Design


Design thinking has helped teams gain empathy and create better experiences for people around the world. Yet sometimes the experiences that result from design thinking processes benefit only the communities and populations that are directly engaged. At other times, it can be hard to advocate for empathy within organizations in a way that effectively informs design. How might we prevent exclusions related to safety, accessibility, and belonging that can result from our designs? How can designers take responsible, inclusive action against daunting, systemic challenges?

As part of the 2020 Seattle Design Festival, our Associate Strategy Director Felix Chang led a participatory session highlighting ways that designers and professionals can take action to increase inclusion through their work.

Attendees had the opportunity to break out into small virtual discussion groups to share best practices and brainstorm actionable ways to foster greater inclusion through the lenses of culture, mindset, and practice. These were some of the key take-aways the group generated together:

Culture

  • Inclusion is a human act. Establish relationships and build trust within your organization and with diverse communities. Start conversations, get to know people, and schedule one-on-one check-ins to learn about their personal life, not just their work.
  • Evangelize the value proposition of inclusion to organizations and specific teams to build momentum. Communicate the value in terms of both risks to avoid (i.e. lawsuits) and net-new benefits (i.e. increased market size, improved perceptions of brand).
  • Normalize and distribute responsibility and accountability for inclusion across the organization, not just for those with specific roles or identities.

Mindset

  • Retrain your brain to act and focus on impact, rather than intentions, when it comes to inclusive practices.
  • Make reflecting on exclusion and inclusion a habit. Regularly think about the biases and privileges you and your team bring to your work.
  • Consider accessibility and belonging when working in new mediums like mixed reality, before they are even built.

Practice

  • Strengthen communication by establishing and using common, agreed-upon language when discussing inclusion. Avoid using jargon or acronyms.
  • Create formal spaces to co-create with diverse folks and communities that meet them where they are.
  • Build in steps for quality assurance for inclusion throughout the product development process.

Attendees were then invited to make an inclusion commitment using the form below to put what they learned into practice. How will you work toward practicing inclusion in your team and organization?

To keep the conversation going, be sure to sign up for our Impact by Design event series.





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Ability and flexibility:
Designing technology for everyone



Event

Building Resilience at Scale with Digital Healthcare Tools


Matthew Jordan
Matthew Jordan

Digital healthcare solutions have provided support for many people facing mental health challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. How can healthcare providers at the forefront of such care help remote patients build resilience? What are the challenges of scaling care from in-person to digital experiences? How can researchers, healthcare providers, and designers collaborate to support better patient experiences?

In this webinar, Artefact Executive Creative Director and Healthcare Practice Lead Matthew Jordan sat down with Dr. Abby Rosenberg, Director, Palliative Care and Resilience Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, to discuss their three-year partnership developing, launching, and scaling the PRISM app for youth facing chronic illness. The app uses clinically-backed mental health platforms to support resilience skills-training for adolescent and young adult patients facing serious health conditions.

Discover the process and lessons learned transforming the paper-based PRISM resilience-building program into a robust app experience; the core principles that guided the partnership; and how researchers, healthcare providers, and designers can together improve care experiences and health outcomes.





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Designing the Future of Mobility



Design

Postcards from the field:
3 Principles for effective design research

Jeff Turkelson
Jeff Turkelson

A design solution is only as strong as the research that informs it. Across the wide variety of industries and topics of inquiry we’ve pursued at Artefact, each research undertaking is important in its own way. Despite different approaches and methods, when we go into the field as designers, there are three principles we follow to get the most out of our research:

  • Analyze in parallel: Analyze findings as we go to jumpstart analysis after research and be efficient with our time.
  • Expose and collaborate: Give client partners an opportunity to react to what we’re hearing and shape future research sessions.
  • Focus on delivery: Plan for how to convey findings to design teams and clients in a compelling way.

These principles help us approach each research engagement with a tailored yet efficient approach. Let’s look at how they manifest across a diverse range of projects, industries, and research groups.

Understanding users more holistically

Foundational user research typically focuses on either what participants have to say (e.g. interviews) or what they do (e.g. observing a task performed), but in some cases it’s necessary to understand both within a limited amount of time.

One way to achieve this is by asking participants to take us on a “narrative tour” of how they engage with the challenge we are tackling: i.e. walk us through their routines while narrating their thoughts, feelings, and rationale.

In a project concerning medication management and adherence for people with Parkinson’s disease, we joined the gentleman pictured above in his routine of laying out his pills for the week every Sunday night. The behavior reflects a value of wanting to be confident he is doing everything he can to take his medicine, but to not have to think about it all the time during the week. At lunch or dinner, he would just take all the pills from the right box.

We captured highlights from each narrative research session in daily “postcards from the field” that we shared with our client partner. This allowed us to communicate not only the kind of information we were collecting, but the context and real people behind the data. It also provided clients with the opportunity to shape topics or additional questions in future sessions.

Bringing immersive environments to remote teams

User research doesn’t just involve people’s thoughts and behaviors. Sometimes the environment and the way it shapes behavior is significant to a product’s success.

In designing a new projector-based smart home product, we knew it was critical to understand the breadth of home environments in which it might live. Lighting, surface qualities, and sight lines all affect how a projected image appears. More importantly, we sought to understand how future users might change their home to accommodate a projector-based product in light of these factors. We traveled to three different countries to capture a range of home environments and different cultural mindsets around home life that could impact the success of the product.

Our client’s design team needed to be immersed in these environments and see the ideal experience for themselves, but they couldn’t all join us in the field. To bring the experience to them, we captured 360-degree imagery and loaded them into VR headsets for an experience that traditional photos couldn’t afford.

We then mocked up what the ideal product experience might look like in real homes. This illustrated the way people actually engage with the product far better than the idealized staged environment the client had previously been using as a reference point, allowing them to draw better conclusions from our research to inform the product design.

Relating to all stakeholder groups

The user experience on the “back end” of systems used for IT and troubleshooting isn’t typically given the same priority as consumer-facing applications, but the impact of the UX is no less significant. 

When an in-flight entertainment (IFE) system goes down and technicians can’t fix problems efficiently, flights can depart without resolving the issue, causing challenges for passengers, cabin crew, and an airline’s reputation. In our work on a major airline’s IFE system, it was essential to understand the technician experience just as much as the passenger’s.

Most IFE maintenance interfaces are designed by and for engineers developing the system in the lab, but maintenance workers on the ground have different goals and operate in a very different environment. 

We observed maintenance technicians repairing IFE systems on airplanes, capturing video that highlighted differences between simulated flows and real-life usage. These video stories from the field convinced the client executive team of the need for a technician-optimized interface by highlighting where and why time was wasted.

Deriving insights beyond the user

User research isn’t the singular best way to understand where an industry is heading. Technology, the economy, public policy, and other factors beyond the personal experiences and needs of people shape how an industry could evolve. 

In a project investigating the evolution of mobility, we combined several different research streams to gain a comprehensive picture of what the future might hold. We spoke with “edge” users – those whose behaviors are less common but may be signals of future trends – as well as subject-matter experts and think tanks like the MIT media lab. We then hosted a futurist panel discussion and invited our client to sit in, allowing them the opportunity to engage directly with the assembled experts.

By using these three principles for how to approach research – analyze in parallel, expose and collaborate, and focus on delivery – we are able to deliver actionable insights to our client partners in an efficient and compelling way, while keeping them in the loop as collaborators throughout the process. 





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Exploring the Impact of AI in Education



Design

Futures Sketchbook: Mobility 2030


While the future is always unknown, the pandemic has amplified our awareness of uncertainty, implicating many facets of life that were once thought of as enduring. 

This series explores this altered landscape through the lens of critical uncertainties and narrative sketches of potential 10-year futures. These scenarios are not predictions – they illustrate a range of plausible outcomes that may help challenge prevailing assumptions, spark discussion, and inform more resilient strategies.

The strategic question

In light of the current pandemic, how might the future of mobility evolve in the US by 2030? Will the pandemic act as a catalyst for significant change, or will we observe a return to the norm?

The model

Mobility scenarios often focus on technology (e.g. autonomous, AI, electrification, etc.) and innovation/policy (e.g. new business models, regulation, etc.). Looking ahead, the mobility landscape may also be impacted by other factors we have previously taken for granted:

1. Norms regarding shared space and resources

How might policies and attitudes toward density, crowds, personal/public space, and shared resources/services affect mobility behaviors? 

2. The future of work

How might changes in work – specifically the trend toward decentralized and asynchronous knowledge work and the “death of the office” – contribute to secondary effects that impact mobility?

The interaction of these dynamics leads to the following scenarios:

Four scenarios

1. View from 2019

Work is more centralized + Sharing increases

2030 looks a lot like we thought it might in 2019.  Pandemic effects were relatively short-lived – with most people returning to old patterns of work and lifestyle once the virus was contained. The office remains the dominant paradigm for professional work and the car remains the primary means of transport around which everything else is built. In large and affluent cities, AI manages the commute for many, in concert with connected vehicles, ride-sharing services, increasing numbers of autonomous vehicles, and a smattering of micro-mobility solutions that come and go. More and more organizations are organizing their own solutions, and the company bus is simply an extension of the office. Poor neighborhoods, smaller cities, and rural areas are increasingly left behind, as access to stable and well-paid work declines, income inequality widens, and the middle-class contracts.

2. Urban Utopia

Work is more decentralized + Sharing increases

Work is a hybrid activity – taking place in new, shared offices, at home, and elsewhere, but still somewhat linked to geography. Large cities are still the nexus of culture and commerce. City planners moved aggressively during and after the pandemic to create more livable cites – closing off major roads to vehicle traffic and moving toward pedestrian and bike-friendly infrastructure. E-bikes and scooters are everywhere. Retail is thriving as a destination experience, while traditional office space is being converted into mixed-use spaces and apartments which are available as part of innovative and affordable sharing models that have increased access to housing. Delivery has become the dominant means of acquiring everyday goods. The automobile is increasingly irrelevant in the city but remains a necessity in the suburbs and beyond. 

3. Solo Commute

Work is more centralized + Sharing decreases

As some experts predicted, the virus is still with us, although we have become adept at managing its impact. The initial experiment in remote work proved a mixed bag, leading many firms to create new workspaces designed to foster optimal levels of collaboration and productivity while maintaining new and sometimes elaborate hygiene policies. Cities are particularly dysfunctional, as mass transit ridership has declined, reducing revenue and thwarting needed improvements. Safer alternatives and micro-mobility have proliferated, exacerbating challenges with aging infrastructure and a car-centric world. Traffic is getting worse each year, and the suburbs are growing. Those that can commute by car do so, parking some distance from the office where they access autonomous company transit designed for individual privacy and cleanliness. 

4. Rural Shift

Work is more decentralized + Sharing decreases

The effects of the pandemic have been deep and long-lasting, particularly in terms of attitudes toward public/private space, density, and perceived safety. The office is dead. As more companies adopted remote, decentralized and asynchronous work policies, many people migrated from coastal cities to more affordable and less congested locales – breathing new life into small towns as large cities have struggled. Along with work, everything that can happen online does, including higher education, which has become increasingly vocational. The talent economy has created both opportunity and disruption. The economic effects of the early 2020s have lingered – inspiring new priorities and less conspicuous consumption. Even so, personal vehicles are a symbol of the utility they provide and the lifestyles they enable. Fewer people are flying, and the road trip is back.

Looking Ahead

This framework rests on various assumptions – for example that the percentage of people able to work remotely will continue to grow (currently estimated at ~40%). In a future where roughly half of workers are remote, it goes without saying that the other half will need to get from A to B much like today. Likewise, a wide range of services and experiences will require physical presence regardless of how the pandemic plays out. 

Even so, the impacts are potentially significant. These scenarios aim to explore the edges of what is possible and the dynamics at play. In some ways, 2030 will look like today, and in other ways it will be quite different – the question is in which ways, and to what extent. Will you load groceries in an electric SUV, receive delivery by drone, ride an e-bike to the market, hail an autonomous shuttle, or take public transit? Yes, probably.





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Designing with – not for – the Changing Face of Global Health



Rob Girling
Rob Girling

Artefact stands in solidarity with the Black community as an ally in the fight against inequality and injustice. The fundamental mission of Artefact is to create a more equitable and sustainable world. Combating individual and systemic racism is everyone’s responsibility, and we take this mission seriously.

We have spent the past weeks listening, learning, and continuing to examine how we can do better as an organization and community. Inclusion is a foundational value of Artefact, but we must and will do more. We are strengthening anti-racism practices within our organization, as well as continuing to advocate for equity, inclusion, and justice in our craft through responsible design.

I want to reiterate that we are listening. Please share with us any feedback on how we can engage with our community and industry to be more equitable and inclusive.

Thank you,

Rob Girling, CEO

We encourage you to join us in learning from the voices of designers, creatives, and strategists who have been committed to growing and sustaining this movement:

Justice by Design

Antionette Carroll, Founder and Executive Director of Creative Reaction Lab, explores in this talk how creatives have the ability and responsibility to use design in crafting a more just world.

Originality and Invention

In this panel, photographer Carrie Mae Weems, architect Sir David Adjaye, and Professor Sarah Lewis discuss how the creation of space and institutions can challenge societal understanding of justice and identity.

The Value and Importance of Conflict

Visual designer Rick Griffith examines in this talk how constructive conflict of ideas can contribute to meaningful change in communities and society.

How to Think Differently about Doing Good as a Creative Person

A guide to social impact problem solving rooted in equity, consent, and co-creation, by engineer Omayeli Arenyeka.

Revision Path

A podcast by creative strategist Maurice Cherry showcasing the experiences and inspirations of Black creatives across the design continuum.

Redesigners in Action Webinar Series

An introduction to Equity-Centered Community Design, a process and framework by the Creative Reaction Lab that aims to deliver more equitable and just outcomes through design.

Where are the Black Designers?

A virtual conference on June 27 to connect and elevate creatives of color and spark conversation around representation in the design community. The event is open to all professionals.

News

A Message From Our
Co-CEO Gavin Kelly

“You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” – Walt Disney

After almost 14 years at Artefact, I will be stepping down as co-CEO on June 11, 2020. Rob Girling will serve as sole CEO, and I will remain a partner in the company and an advisor to leadership. As always, we remain fully committed to our customers, continually striving to make a positive impact in the world through our work together.

It has been an honor and a privilege to work with the Artefact team over the years. You have helped build something truly special and made my dream of a purpose-driven design studio a reality – thank you. And to the companies who chose – and continue to choose – to work with us, I am sincerely grateful for your trust and allowing us to work alongside you to bring your ideas to life. 

I want to thank Rob for being such an inspiring business partner and friend – I could not imagine a better collaborator. Rob and the Artefact team will continue to deliver the world-class design that has made Artefact one of the best in our field, and I am excited to see him lead Artefact to new heights.

Lastly, I’d like to thank my wife Jenny for being so supportive when I first decided to ditch the corporate life and start my own business. This move has been in the works for some years, and as for what comes next, I do plan to relax for a while, explore some new interests, and spend time with my family and reconnecting with friends.

Thank you, Artefact for a remarkable journey!

Sincerely,

Gavin Kelly