How designers can use dystopia as a tool for creating better digital experiences

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Dystopia as a Tool

For over 150 years, writers and philosophers have used dystopia as a tool to examine and question our social and political structures. Today, speculative fiction is alive and well–as a multi-billion-dollar entertainment genre and also as a teaching tool in design classrooms to spark important conversations. Yet, speculative fiction hardly gets mentioned, let alone used, on product teams in the workplace. Why is that, when digital products have reshaped social structures and sprouted entirely new sub-cultures? What if designers used dystopic thought experiments as a tool to create better product experiences? What if our product teams imagined the futures we don’t want to create to actively start designing against them?
This question is particularly important when designing data-driven products in the United States, where there is little to no federal oversight. As of today, there is no single, comprehensive federal law on protecting consumer’s digital privacy. The last law passed in the US was the Privacy Law of 1974. Since then, data privacy regulation has been proposed by senators across bipartisan lines but has not caught serious traction in Congress. Abroad, the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018, Japan passed the Act on Protection of Personal Information in 2017, and South Korea passed the Personal Information Protection Act in 2011. While there has been some progress made, overall, we’re nowhere close to comprehensive data protection.
In the absence of strict governmental regulation, companies are collecting, mining and/or selling data at full speed, having spent $19 billion to collect and analyze user data in 2018. Much of this collection and analysis is not explicitly consensual between companies and users. To give a recent example, research firm LexisNexis has started creating “risk scores” assessing an individual’s risk of opioid addiction or overdose by piecing together data from insurance claims, digital health records, housing records, and information about a patient’s friends, family and roommates. This information is then sold to insurers without a patient ever knowing or consenting. In a perfect world, this could help doctors be more cautious and sensitive when prescribing powerful opiates. But in reality, we also must imagine what could go wrong.
This is exactly the question designers and product teams need to be asking more often. While there is nothing wrong with using data to create better product experiences, we must be more thoughtful about potential negative consequences of the digital products we create, especially as these products start to understand users more intimately. Given a lax regulatory environment, a thoughtful approach to digital experiences can be a competitive advantage. For example, Apple has leaned into its stance on stricter data privacy, hoping to feel like a safe pair of hands in comparison to other tech giants.
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<h6>Why designers?</h6>
By definition, design is a series of intentional decisions made to achieve a desired outcome. How thoughtfully are we approaching our desired outcomes? Too often, product teams focus on reaching an ideal outcome for the business (i.e. how do we get as many users as possible to use this product?). While business people are trained in scenario analysis for financial forecasting (creating worst / likely / best case scenarios), this process hasn’t been regularly introduced into the design process when considering how people might use (or misuse) the products being introduced into the world.
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<h6>Dystopia as a Tool for Design</h6>
Creating new businesses and new product experiences is inherently imaginative and we often do a lot of writing in this process. We can take inspiration from science fiction writers and apply their ethos to the tools we often use in our design process, both when we’re considering what our brand stands for and when we’re thinking through how users might use our products. When we think about creating a better digital experience, we must consider both our own company’s decisions as well as potential misuse by users of our products.
In the introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin explains that science fiction writers are misunderstood because people assume they are trying to predict the demise of society. She explains that as a writer, she is here “not to predict the future… but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is not predictive, it is descriptive.” That’s what makes good science fiction, good – it is eerily representative of current society. It shows us, from a bird’s eye view, what is currently happening. Product teams are also similarly surveying the current situation. One framework we often use at frog is the 4 C’s, which stand for Company, Category, Customer, and Culture. This helps us map out current realities that we can then use as a foundation for our dystopic thought experiments.
In particular, the problem of data use (or misuse) is not just up to the cyber-security experts or engineers to figure out from a technical level. It starts at understanding people and the worlds we currently live in, while applying some imagination to how that world might change given the emergence of new technologies and tools.
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<h6>Company</h6>
A company’s values are embodied by its brand. An exercise we often use when thinking about brand is “Hero vs. Villain.” Every good brand stands for something–it is a “hero” working against a “villain.” In this exercise we ask, what is your brand fighting against? For example, Nike is fighting against the idea of lethargy. “Just do it” is urgent and fights against standing still. If we were to use this exercise with a dystopic twist, we could ask, “What if our company were the villain?” Imagine you work for a wearables company and your mission is to help users prevent chronic illness. What would make your company the villain? Would it be preventing users from receiving health insurance if they were to get sick? These scenarios help your team outline the values required to ensure that this villainous situation doesn’t happen. If your company or team does a regular team off-site, consider doing this exercise together during that time. If not, this brainstorm could be held during lunch.
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<h6>Category</h6>
Category refers to the industry you’re working in, more broadly. When we think about a category, we often start with sketching out a value map, which illustrates how your company fits into a broader ecosystem—it shows who the players your company is interacting with, at a glance. Lines connecting your company to different players are labeled with what’s being exchanged (i.e. money, data, governance). For example, in Facebook’s value map, players might include advertisers, Facebook users, data brokers and governments. What type of value is being exchanged at every interaction? Who are the most valuable players in this map and how much power does each player have? What if power dynamics switched? Does one type of exchange between two players hurt other players? What do your competitor’s value maps look like and are they treating your most valuable players better?
Refreshing your value map on a quarterly basis is good practice. It helps you reassess your business model and keep focused on the people who are most important.
Some companies, like <a href="http://www.lowesinnovationlabs.com/">Lowe’s Innovation Labs</a>, embrace speculative fiction wholeheartedly by hiring science fiction writers to imagine possible futures. Kyle Nel who previously led the lab equipped the writers with market research and asked them to write real stories with characters and conflict and resolution. It’s the conflict and the potential resolution that more product teams have room to embrace.
It’s my hope that by introducing these thought experiments in the workplace and infusing them into tools designers are already comfortable with that we can spark divergent thinking and create better digital experiences, protect user’s privacy, and avoid dystopic outcomes. Ultimately, the products we create are the most significant vehicles for the company’s brand. Designers are both keepers of the brand and defenders of the user, and by adding dystopic thought experiments to the toolset, we can do this job even better.
Agnes will be speaking further on this topic at her SXSW Panel, “Designing Against a Data Dystopia” on March 9, 2019. Find out more details <a href="https://schedule.sxsw.com/2019/events/PP85235">here</a>.

Agnes Pyrchla

Agnes is a Senior Strategist at frog San Francisco. Fascinated by human behavior, large ecosystems and inspired by principles within nature, Agnes works with clients to build businesses that foster a respect for the customer, community and the planet.

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We spoke with Jen Dennard, Co-Founder of Range, and Tanya Soman, Venture Partner of 500 Startups at frog's San Francisco studio about what it's like to start a business as a woman in Silicon Valley.

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Female Founders

frog invests in startups (via our <a href="https://www.frog.co/services/ventures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">frogVentures</a>™ practice) and we’re always working on ways we can be great partners to the founders we work with. In this conversation, we were curious to learn: how can we support women and other underrepresented founders?
I know, I know. This question has been asked a million times before, but these conversations must continue until women receive the same amount of funding as men do. As Tanya put it, “There have been a lot of these conversations and the message is always the same. But until we see an equal amount of capital flowing to women, we need to keep talking about it.”
Luckily, there are plenty of female-founded companies to invest in across all verticals. There is particularly high growth in areas that women have first-hand experience with, like women’s healthcare. At frog, we want to play our part in helping these female-founded startups succeed. In this spirit, we’ve gathered some nuggets for first-time female founders to consider across multiple phases of starting a company from our conversation with Jen and Tanya.

<h2>Getting Started</h2>
Although the number of female role models is increasing by the day, many women still doubt themselves about stepping into a founder role. Jen mentioned that most women who come to her for advice still ask, “Can I do this?” To Jen, the answer is ‘Hell yes!’ You can absolutely take on a founder role if you want to, and you can define what being a founder looks like for you. She recommends that if you’re considering starting a company, put together a list of other female founders to serve as a support network for when (inevitably) times get hard.
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<h2>Fundraising</h2>
Once you’ve decided that you’re starting a company, you will likely seek financing. Successful fundraisers understand their audience. Both Jen and Tanya clued us in to well-understood, but typically unspoken rules when approaching venture capitalists (VCs).
Tanya shared, “There’s a saying that women state their actual numbers in pitch decks while men state double. [No matter your gender] VC’s will always take a haircut when they look at your numbers because they assume you’ve padded them. I think there is some truth to that. So if you’re stating your ‘real’ numbers, your business won’t look as good as your male counterparts.” Know that your potential investors assume you’re giving them the best- case scenario. Don’t be afraid to be optimistic about your potential growth, as long as you can support your argument.
Aside from under-estimating your value in a pitch deck, an outfit choice may also become an accidental pitfall. This is beyond cliche, but as it turns out, women still have to ask, “What should I wear?” before investor meetings more than their male counterparts. Said Jen, “I was advised not to dress too professionally, otherwise I’d be mistaken for a VC’s admin, because that is still a predominant dynamic in VC today.” While it’s hard to believe this is still the case, it’s important to be aware of this nuance when preparing for the strongest first impression.
Understand that pre-existing power dynamics will play out in the room, so plan for them and use whatever advantages you may have. For example, Jen mentioned that she mapped out speaking roles with her male co-founders before meetings. She recounted, “When we were looking for investment, my male co-founders and I created a game-plan before our meetings. We knew which questions were mine to answer. When the questions were asked in the meetings, my male co-founders would turn their heads to me signaling that I was the expert.” Even if a VC started out as dismissive, her co-founders’ body language cues put her in a position of power that the VCs couldn’t ignore.
While you’re planning out the power dynamics in the room, plan for bad behavior so that you know what to do if you see it. Create a list of “no-gos” before meetings, promising yourself or your team not to work with VCs who exhibit these actions, regardless of how powerful they are. For example, you may choose not to work with VCs who cut women off mid-sentence or ask about plans for children (sadly, we learned that these questions have been asked before).
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<h2>Creating a Company Culture</h2>
Once funding is secured, you’ll have to consider building a company culture. What’s so cool about this is that it’s your company and you get to define it. And even though you are an ambitious, thriving founder, there may be moments where you find yourself falling into a role that fits a gender stereotype. Jen shared, “Now that I am building the culture of my company, I am more aware of gender dynamics. And you know what? It’s OK to fill gender stereotypes sometimes. Yes, I will bake you a cake if it’s your birthday. And yes, I will buy you a bath bomb if you’ve had a stressful week. But I’m not the office mom.” As you build your company culture, be aware of stereotypes and check in with yourself to ask, am I doing this because it’s expected of me? Or because this is who I am and because I really want to? If the behavior is true to your personality, there is no shame in that game. The choice is up to you.
These hard-learned lessons shared throughout our conversation demonstrate what first time under-represented founders have to go through. At frog, we value this perspective as positive reminders for ourselves as investors, particularly around power dynamics. We feel it’s important for the founders we work with to feel comfortable enough to ask us the questions that really keep them up at night, without having to feel polished in their approach.
Both Jen and Tanya emphasized making investment opportunities visible to those who may not have heard of 500 Startups or other big VCs. So, if you’re a woman or any other underrepresented individual reading this, or if you know of someone who has started their own company, send them this article. Know that frog meets with startups everyday, and we’re excited to see how we might work with you.

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Broadening our focus on human experience to include the entire natural ecosystem.

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Designing Beyond the Human Experience

In a Harvard Business Review article titled, “<a href="https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-social-ventures-need-systems-thinking">Why Social Ventures Need Systems Thinking</a>,” the authors argue that in order for solutions to be implemented—to actually work—they have to be elegantly embedded into larger ecosystems, such as a school district or a corporate structure. Similarly, many of the challenges we tackle at <a href="https://www.frog.co/">frog</a>, like clean energy consumption or efficient transportation, require us to think broadly about the systems we are designing around. As a strategist, when I consider ecosystem design I am not only thinking about a family of products or a business unit within a company; I am thinking about how the products and services we create impact our communities and our environment.
I had the opportunity to leverage this way of thinking on a recent trip to Brazil, as a participant in an International Development Design Summit (IDDS). International Development Design Summits were born out of MIT’s D-Lab as an way for interdisciplinary teams to work with communities on low-cost solutions, tackling a social issue like education or health. Participatory design is at the core of the IDDS ethos, which means that teams work with communities to design solutions together, rather than designing for them. Designing in this way enables solutions to be immediately actionable, yet sustainable over the long term, because they are true to the community’s way of life.
The summit I attended in Brazil was focused on environmental sustainability via permaculture—a holistic approach to designing efficient natural ecosystems. Marrying participatory design and permaculture, we were constantly asking ourselves, “Does this solution work for the community? Does this solution make sense for the environment? Could it even be regenerative?” We studied both behavioral patterns and natural patterns, like river tides, to inform our thinking; an understanding of symbiotic relationships was central to our work.
Photo courtesy of Diego Dallas Martins.
Photo courtesy of Diego Dalmaso Martins
I saw examples of symbiotic relationships firsthand in the town of Boa Vista, where I spent many days of the two-week program hopping from log to log along a verdant path that led to my team member’s river front home. To get there, we meandered through the rainforest, enveloped by 40 foot açaí and cacao trees, often stopping to pick cacao fruit. One afternoon, a team member and local resident named Max was leading the way along our familiar tree lined path when he bent over and placed a tarantula on his shoulder. I looked on with wide eyes; why was Max unafraid of this venomous spider, as I was? He explained that, having grown up in this environment, he understood the tarantula’s behaviors and knew how it would behave if it felt threatened. Because of this understanding, he lives in harmony with these creatures in the Amazon. Day after day, I observed the deep respect that the Boa Vista community showed for the natural environment that they share with the countless organisms that call the rainforest home.
By working with this community, I was challenged to design beyond the human experience. For example, when considering solutions for an aquaculture project, we had to ask ourselves, “Would the fish feel happy in this environment?” Admittedly, it felt silly to think this way at first, but I soon learned that this question had broader implications. If the fish were happy in the pond that we built, we would spend less energy and fewer resources trying to keep them there. We had to create a pond that included elements that fish naturally gravitate towards, like plant life and multiple depths. I realized that I had been thinking about my relationship with the natural world as if I were outside of it. I had to reframe my thinking; I was not working with nature, I am a part of nature. As an extension, we as humans are an element of a greater natural ecosystem and we must design for it holistically.
What does success look like if we design holistically? As part of our permaculture curriculum, we studied multiple dimensions of value, shown in the chart below. Value is created beyond the bottom line; there is also social, material, living, intellectual, experiential, spiritual, and cultural value. By designing for multiple value types, we create richer, more sustainable solutions—not just for one organization, but for our society at large.
As I continue to evolve my craft as a systems thinker and ecosystem designer, I have made a promise to myself: to consider human patterns and their impact on both social and natural environments, and to design solutions across multiple value types that are additive to the bottom line, as well as our natural environment and our collective experience on our planet.
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Agnes is a Senior Strategist at frog San Francisco. Fascinated by human behavior, large ecosystems and inspired by principles within nature, Agnes works with clients to build businesses that foster a respect for the customer, community and the planet.
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Agnes Pyrchla

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Dystopia as a Tool

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