Speculative design | Concept design
Degrowth of digital devices sector
Overview
About this project
This project utilizes speculative design practices to explore the future of the digital devices sector in a degrowth scenario in which a new ecosystem operates to mitigate its environmental and social impacts.
Signals
I started the project by looking at some signals in the sector as well as the degrowth movement specifically.
By 2025, forecasts suggest that there will be more than 75 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices in use.
According to Green IT, the major cause of the environmental impacts of digital technology is the enormous number of consumer devices.
Digital devices require intensive energy for both the production and use phases.
They also require extracting and refining a huge amount of resources (metals, fossil fuels, water,…) to produce.
Planned obsolescence from product companies and acceleration of new use (VR, AR, 5G,…) without strict regulations contribute significantly to the perpetual growth of digital devices and the tech sector.
If we continue with the current rate of development, we will soon face catastrophic environmental and social impacts while fighting for resources.
The degrowth movement is gaining traction
The IPCC AR6 introduced “degrowth” as one of 9 alternative sustainable concepts potentially for replacing our current economic system.
“Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being” - Jason Hickel
The Green IT report also stresses that to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of digital technology, solutions designed to reduce the number of digital devices and increase their lifespan are the most impactful. The suggestions are in line with the degrowth movement focusing on the reduction of unnecessary production and consumption.
Sources: Resilience, Jason Hickel, Green IT
Future scenarios
Future cone
I used the Future cone tool to brainstorm multiple different future scenarios of the digital devices sector.
Speculative design
Exploring the Preferable future
In the year 2030, when the digital devices sector is degrowth and companies are not subjected to the pressure of generating profits but only focusing on providing services that people need, we managed to significantly scale down the production of new devices, thus contributing to mitigate environmental impacts, allow people to have better well-being.
Artifacts
I designed some conceptual UI for 3 main use cases for future users of digital devices.
Goals
Support users to take care of digital devices to maximize the product lifespan.
Support ease of sharing and pooling digital devices among local users to reduce consumption.
User case 1
Users can manage devices they own or borrow, monitor the conditions of digital devices, and check their lifespan and warranty options.
Goal
Support users to conveniently fix their own devices or get them fixed to avoid purchasing new devices.
User case 2
Users are informed when there’s potential damage to specific components of the devices and get guidance on how to fix it.
User case 3
Users are encouraged to have frequent yearly maintenance from professionals as part of warranty coverage.
Goal
Support users in extending the lifespan of digital devices to reduce the production and consumption of new devices.
Implications
The underlying ecosystem
In order to deliver to future users seamless ways to monitor their devices and quality maintenance services with the purpose of maximizing the lifespan of their devices, we need a new ecosystem of connected users, businesses, and governmental policies organized around the goal to scale down the digital devices sectors.
Explore each actor and their connections in the new ecosystem in the interactive prototype below. The experience is better in full-screen mode.
What’s next
This is a really quick take to explore one future scenario, if continue on this topic, I would like to explore other scenarios or test people’s reactions to this speculative design and its implication.