Abstract
This study investigates diegetic prototyping as an alternative approach to enhance design innovation beyond the incremental scope of User-Centred Design. In contrast, while speculative design, including diegetic prototyping, embeds future-oriented ideas within narrative contexts, promoting critical reflection on societal and technological implications, it often lacks focus on practically viable design innovations. Employing a Research-through-Design approach, we developed three diegetic prototypes to evaluate their effectiveness in design innovation. The three prototypes are classified as look-and- feel, role, and implementation prototypes. Audience feedback, gathered through surveys and focus group interviews, assessed perceptions of novelty, acceptability, and innovative ness, wherein design innovation is positioned as a tension between novelty and acceptability. Findings suggest diegetic prototypes may effectively balance provocative speculation with user acceptability. This highlights their potential role in bridging speculative ideas with practical viability. This research proposes diegetic prototyping as a valuable method for expanding innovation opportunities beyond traditional user- centred approaches, facilitating tangible engagement with plausible, future scenarios.
Keywords
Design innovation; Diegetic prototypes; Design fiction; Product design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.580
Citation
Kim, S.J.,and Self, J.(2025) Exploring the Opportunity of Diegetic Prototyping as an Approach to Design Innovation, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.580
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 2 - Design Futuring
Exploring the Opportunity of Diegetic Prototyping as an Approach to Design Innovation
This study investigates diegetic prototyping as an alternative approach to enhance design innovation beyond the incremental scope of User-Centred Design. In contrast, while speculative design, including diegetic prototyping, embeds future-oriented ideas within narrative contexts, promoting critical reflection on societal and technological implications, it often lacks focus on practically viable design innovations. Employing a Research-through-Design approach, we developed three diegetic prototypes to evaluate their effectiveness in design innovation. The three prototypes are classified as look-and- feel, role, and implementation prototypes. Audience feedback, gathered through surveys and focus group interviews, assessed perceptions of novelty, acceptability, and innovative ness, wherein design innovation is positioned as a tension between novelty and acceptability. Findings suggest diegetic prototypes may effectively balance provocative speculation with user acceptability. This highlights their potential role in bridging speculative ideas with practical viability. This research proposes diegetic prototyping as a valuable method for expanding innovation opportunities beyond traditional user- centred approaches, facilitating tangible engagement with plausible, future scenarios.