The Future Web
Posted
Zach Keimig, Simply—A separatist society built on the structure found in amish cultures, where people outside the community are hired to manage website and other forms of technology in order that those within the community can remain detached from technology. Simply provide the security and safety required to maintain separation in a post-apocalyptic world.
Andrea Roberts, The 3D Printed Web Presentation—an online system where clothing, custom tailored to your body via a 3d scanner is downloaded and 3d printed on demand in your home.
Tristen Lerma, Hear—a further development of babble fish that fully commercializes an automated in ear translator allowing everyday people to travel and speak naturally without understanding one another\\\'s language.
| Educator/s: | Brandon Waybright |
|---|---|
| Institution: | George Fox University |
| Level: | Undergraduate |
| Duration: | 3 weeks |
| Category: | User Experience, User Interface, Web Design |
| Filed Under: | BA Program, Brainstorming, Design Futures (Designer of 2025), Design Research, Experimental, Four-year Program, Social Impact, Technology |
| Bookmark Project | |
Project Brief
Thinking on a larger scale, you will consider what you have learned about people, interactions, and experience and propose a redesign not of a web page but of the web itself. Considering current web and societal issues as well as emerging technological possibilities, prototype and present to us what the web might be like in the year 2049.
END RESULT
You’re end goal is to present a vision of what the web might be like in 2049, making a case for its overall goodness (utopia) or horror (dystopia). Your presentation should visualize what this future web might be like. The vision should be carefully designed and well-crafted. You must base your future look on evidence of technology that is being developed and in social issues that are identifiable in today's world. Your final presentation should weave together a story of how the web developed and incorporate ethical questioning of where we (and the web) are heading.
REQUIREMENTS
Your final presentation must include:
1. Evidence of Technological Possibility: You must convince us that your project represents a possible future by rooting your work in things that exist or are being developed today.
2. Visualized Future: Should be well-crafted and able to be interpreted. A strong visualization will provide an idea of the interface of the future as well as the way that interface functions.
3. Ethical Questioning: What are the benefits and problems of this future vision? What is gained and lost? You should weigh the benefits of this future vision with the problems it provokes and then draw a conclusion over whether this future is better or more terrible.
Learning Objectives
Objectives for the course:
- Produce web prototypes using AdobeXD and other common design tools.
- Demonstrate the ability to conduct research and produce documents that substantiate choices made in the design process.
- Clearly define and present the issues and problems in existing sites.
- Consider the shortcomings and possibilities of the web itself. Using design knowledge and design thinking to establish alternative models for the web.
Deliverables
A final presentation that consolidates their thinking, reflections and visualization of the future web.
Readings/Resources
New readings are selected each semester from varied sources related to technological developments that might change the way we use the web. Wired, Good Magazine, Scientific American, and Technology Review often provide some helpful source material.
Reflections
This project was a joy to work through as it engaged students richly in a research-driven design process while also adding practical skills of prototyping and user-reflective design. That said, the project could be enriched by allotting more time and engaging in further iterations and field tests of the of the work.
