Fictional Inquiry—design collaboration in a shared narrative space

In this paper we present Fictional Inquiry, a collaborative Participatory Design technique that provides an approach that allows designers to shape the context of collaborative design activities. Fictional Inquiry allows designers to address specific issues when inquiring into existing use practices, or exploring the future in the collaborative design process. Fictional Inquiry entails bypassing existing socio-cultural structures by creating partially fictional situations, artifacts, and narratives that mediate collaborative design activities. In this paper we present the Fictional Inquiry technique through three cases that highlight the applicability of the technique when staging the design situation, evoking ideas for possible futures, and initiating organizational change. We present a general framework for understanding and staging Fictional Inquiry, and provide an account of how Fictional Inquiry was used in three quite different design situations.