Future Supa
Individual
Speculative Design
Capstone Project - DXB311 Advanced Interaction Design Project
The Problem
Climate change is placing increasing pressures on growers at the same time that increased food insecurity is placing demands for higher yields produced with less of everything: less land, less inputs, less water.
Whilst there’s a growing understanding that current food production systems need to change, growers and the agriculture industry often aren’t consulted in the design and ideation phase of developing ag tech or implementing systems change. The pressure for growers to adopt sustainable practices is often not coupled with the support or understanding of the complexities that surround making these changes.
Producers feel that the crops they grow and practices they implement are dictated by consumer purchasing choices and willingness to pay for goods. Consumers feel that sustainable food production and variety of produce available / ethical and sustainable fibre production is the responsibility of growers and beyond their control.
There is an opportunity to engage both consumers and growers in the realisation that redesigning food and fibre production systems requires ideation, input and collaboration from all actors within the system: growers, consumers, ag industry , food processors, retailers, textilers. Showcasing growers voices and inviting growers and consumers to engage in a playful re-imagining of food and fibre systems could afford a richer, more ethical and sustainable future of farming.
The Process
As I’ve become more comfortable in my design process I less strictly follow the Double Diamond and Design Thinking approaches we have been formally taught and instead embark on something that more closely mirrors Ryan Ford’s concept of the Design Odyssey.
There were multiple iterations of brain storming, prototyping, researching, user testing and re-designing to move from my initial self created brief to my final design outcome.
My process documentation isn’t the entirety of my work. Working individually and at speed I didn’t have the opportunity to document everything but it offers a snapshot of my process.
The Detour
At around the mid point in this project I heavily invested my time in working with AR and teaching myself to train a machine learning model. Whilst I had some successes I eventually reached a barrier in my coding ability to be able to anchor the augmented reality images exactly over the machine learning generated frames.
This reaching of my current abilities was frustrating but one that made me pause to reconsider the user experience.
In using augmented reality and image detection I would create a scenario where visitors to the exhibition would have to download and install an app to access the experience. This would rely on them to perform a potentially cognitively difficult task whilst in a highly distracting exhibition space.
It also meant that visitors had to have a phone with camera capable enough and battery life strong enough to interact with the image recognition and augmented reality sprites.
Whilst the augmented reality experience felt like it would be fun I also realised it didn’t really “add” anything to the experience in terms of sharing information. I recognised that it might act as a barrier to interacting with the experience and that it might also take away from the tangible nature of the experience.
I decided not to invest further hours into learning to code to solve the problem of positioning my AR anchors over machine learning generated frames at this time. In doing so I simplified the design outcome, reduced barriers to use and increased accessibility by using a technology visitors are already familiar with, QR Codes.
The Outcome
Future Supa is an interactive speculative design experience considering the future of food production: Growing more food with less land, less inputs and less water. Participants are invited into the year 2080, into a play supermarket set up in a child’s bedroom. Each piece of play food has been co-designed using DALL-E 2 with a stakeholder along the food supply chain including growers, agronomists, food technologists and consumers. The foods build on current concerns around food production impacted by climate change, supply chain disruptions and global unrest.
Final Deliverables
Finished prototype
Two page instructional sheet
Promotional flyer
User experience / testing report
Three minute project video
Full prototype walk through video
Exhibition poster (template provided)
Reflection
Future Supa is by far my biggest solo project to date. It had many “moving parts” including physical and digital designs.
I have learnt though this project that I have developed a diverse and useful skillset in my time studying at QUT that could be applied in a range of contexts.
I have learnt to recognise when I have hit my limits in terms of capability or time, but not to give up at that moment, instead pivot and look for a simpler way. Simple design is best, nothing that doesn’t strictly have to be there, and the same applies to using skills you have available to you. There’s no points for over complicating things and you’re probably just going to over complicate them for your end user too.
Working on Future Supa has further confirmed for me how much I like working in the space of complex systems and agriculture. Whilst it’s an industry that is only in its infancy in terms of adopting technology it means that there is a lot of space to shape what a technology enhanced future might look like.
Working in a problem space I care deeply about kept me highly motivated, creative and engaged, even when the work was challenging or I thought I had hit my energy limits.
I have had the chance to see the “magic” of technology inspiring people to think differently and creatively in this project, to question what is possible. In co-designing using DALL-E 2 I had the chance to expose a number of stakeholders to a technology they might never have experienced otherwise. It was an absolute joy seeing the delight and wonder it brought to both my participants and myself as the tool afforded us the ability to visualise concepts we could only imagine and describe the fringes of. The rich conversations this tool provoked around the future of food production and security is something I would like to explore further in the future.