400 people shared their futures at the Dutch Design Week

Participant thinking about his possible futures.

During the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, MyFutures hosted the ‘Meet your Futures’ installation at the Mind The Step exhibition in the Klokgebouw for nine days. Every day, dozens of visitors climbed the installation to imagine a life of 130 years on this high seat. In total, over 400 people, from 5 years to 85 years old, left an audio recording in which they share what new possibilities a 130 year-old life could offer them.

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Fourth MyFutures Partner Meeting in Eindhoven

Fourth MyFutures Partner Meeting in Eindhoven

Last Tuesday, September 26th, was the fourth (out of six) MyFutures Partner Meeting. We started the afternoon with the presentation of the results and progress of each of the three cases. That led to three short but substantive discussions. The main part of the program was a workshop with the theme Probing the Future. Having learned the basic principles of futuring as skill. This workshop was provided by “friends of MyFutures”: Summ()n.

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Student projects in the Fall started

Student project in the course Contextmapping Skills
This September, several student projects at Industrial Design Engineering are tieing into the MyFutures theme. In the course DeepDive (TU Delft), twenty students study theory on cognitive biases, the reasons why people have difficulty in making decisions, thinking ahead, and seeing opportunities. Apart from discussing the literature, they look for concrete applications in design, especially how to make decision tools more supportive.
In the course Contextmapping Skills (TU Delft), some thirty students will conduct contextmapping studies for societal partners, finding out how people go about making choices and plans in specific situations such as buying a house, taking on financial services, and arranging informal care. Next to these group projects, several individual research and design projects have started. All these are expected to bring results by the end of this year.

MyFutures booklet: opening edition

 

MyFutures: Opening Edition

In the MyFutures project, we study how individuals can deal with this challenge: how to face the need to arrange things, and start discussing it with others. And how local government and care organisations can provide better services. After half a year, we presented first findings in a symposium, and in this booklet.

With rising life expectancies and retreating government, citizens have more to arrange for their old age situations. But planning for the future, and discussing this with your family, friends, neighbours, and local organisations isn’t easy. 

Interested in the whole story? Download the booklet here!

Sleeswijk Visser, F, & Ernst, E. (Eds, 2017) MyFutures: the future is plural.StudioLab Press.

 

Insight: Elderly need their social network to age in place

Contextmapping session with elderly people

As people get older, they go through cycles of adjustments to their abilities, their home and their attitude. As the physicial restrictions of elderly increase, they adjust their home, behaviour and attitude towards life. Elderly need people around them to deal with their new situation.

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Fall 2017 Electives opportunities

This Fall, in ‘semester 3’, we offer 3 electives that connect to MyFutures.

In MyFutures, TU Delft design researchers, in collaboration with the Design Academy Eindhoven, care organisations, municipalities, and insurers, aim to develop Tools to support thinking about personal futures. This Fall semester we organize three ways to engage with this project in elective courses, building on what was already learned in the project, and working with us to help the project progress.

ID5663 Contextmapping Skills  is the advanced training ground to learn contextmapping with the pros. In groups, you will carry out a complete contextmapping study for a real societal partner. You will defeine the research question, scope and focus, create the materials, conduct sessions, analyse and report the results. CM Skills is taught in collaboration with Design Agency Muzus.  As with last year, the clients/partners will come from the MyFutures problem space. (6EC, Tuesdays in Q1 and Q2) <More…>

In the new electives format ID5070 Deep Dive, you will study an area of scientific and practical knowledge in-depth. This involves reading, finding literature (and in this case: design examples), and discussing these in interaction with experienced academics. This first edition’s topic Design for (?) User Biases is tied closely to MyFutures: how do people make decisions, what stands in the way, and what can be done to help them.  This course will be taught by Pieter Jan Stappers and a visiting researcher from the University of Minnesota, USA. (3EC, Wednesdays, in Q1) <More…>

Finally, if you are interested in doing an individual research project ID550X, contact us. We are interested in guiding research projects which build on and contribute to the MyFutures insights, especially about ‘making plans for personal futures). (Individual scheduling, 3, 6, or 9 EC). Questions? Contact p.j.stappers@tudelft.nl or f.sleeswijkvisser@tudelft.nl.

Mogelijkheden tot afstuderen bij MyFutures!

MyFutures is een onderzoeksproject van de TU Delft en de Design Academy Eindhoven met als onderwerp: “Tools to support thinking about personal futures”. Vanaf september 2017 hebben we plek voor 5 studenten die gaan afstuderen op de vraag:

Hoe kun je familieleden ondersteunen als zij met elkaar op de toekomst willen of moeten anticiperen?

We zoeken: Afstudeerders gaan tools ontwerpen én testen om families te ondersteunen bij het bespreken van delicate onderwerpen zoals ouder worden, onderlinge afhankelijkheid, angst, hoop en verwachtingen voor de toekomst. We zoeken daarom studenten die goed empatisch kunnen ontwerpen en het leuk vinden om dit in nauwe samenwerking met de gebruikers te doen.

We bieden: Binnen het onderwerp bieden we de ruimte om een eigen opdracht te formuleren en met een relevante externe partner samen te werken. Via ons partnernetwerk kunnen we je in contact brengen met een zorginstelling, verzekeringsmaatschappij of gemeente. Daarnaast zou het ook interessant zijn om de samenwerking te zoeken met bijvoorbeeld een notariskantoor, woningcorporatie of projectontwikkelaar. De kennis die we het afgelopen jaar hebben opgedaan uit wetenschappelijke literatuur, interviews en case studies over manieren waarop mensen met de toekomst omgaan en welke barrières zij hierbij ervaren zijn natuurlijk beschikbaar voor een goed fundament en een vliegende start van het project. Eigen ideeën en initiatief worden zeer gewaardeerd en willen we graag bespreken. Daarnaast denken we graag mee over een geschikte chair of mentor die past bij jou en bij de opdracht.

Informatielunch

Woensdag 17 mei,  12.30-13.30,  Studio Say (32B-2-060)

Interesse? Laat even weten dat je komt! Mailen kan naar e.ernst@tudelft.nl en p.j.stappers@tudelft.nl

*because these projects require fieldwork with Dutch partners, we only advertise this call in Dutch.

 

 

 

Symposium – Friday January 27th (sold out)

 

(We’re both happy and sorry to say the event has sold out; if you want to be considered if places come available, send a mail to the email address mentioned on the registration page)

We are all expected to take responsibility for our own health and well- being in the future but many of us are not well prepared. In the MyFutures project municipalities, insurance companies, knowledge institutions and design agencies are working together to develop tools to support people in applying design thinking to their personal future lives.

During this symposium we will share our first design research insights about how people deal with their personal futures in the domains of housing, care, finance and work.

Keynote speaker is prof. Elizabeth Sanders, who is a pioneer in involving users in the design proces. Her current focus is on bringing participatory, human-centered design thinking and co-creation practices to the challenges we face for the future.

Everyone who is interested in the challenges of thinking about the future and the possibilities of applying design thinking to personal futures is warmly invited to join us at this event. The amount of places available is limited so please register by filling in this form: http://tinyurl.com/MyFutures27Jan17

Fri. 27-01-2017

13.30-17.30

IDE Arena, TU Delft