GRAPHIC NOVELS

FOR ELICITATION
OF NORMATIVE
FUTURE
SCENARIOS
DAVE MURRAY-RUST, JOSKE HOUTKAMP, MARC
METZGER, INGE LA RIVIERE, MARTA PEREZ-SOBA,
JAMES PATERSON, ANNE JENSEN

OUTLINE
Background visions of future land use
Design Constraints
Task and interface description
Reflections and usage
THE WORLD IS
CHANGING RAPIDLY
Anthropocene,
since 1784 (Crutzen)

Great acceleration,
from 1950 (Steffen)
BACKGROUND
Scenarios?
The most likely future isnt
Tool for exploring the future
Coherent descriptions of the
future, qualitative and/or
quantitative
E.g. SRES emissions
scenarios for climate change
Various types, e.g. exploratory
vs normative
Visions?
Normative scenarios what do
people desire
Combine with exploratory
scenarios to create a roadmap
Typically developed by experts
LAND USE IS A COMPLEX ISSUE
Finite amount of land
Competing desires food
production, leisure, housing,
transport, ecology, timber etc.
Different approaches
multifunctionality vs. optimality
Connects to many areas of life
Personal choices lead to broad
changes
Not always well understood by
the general public
DESIGN
CONSIDERATIONS
Task: construct visions of future land use in 2040
Time consuming task (>20mins) and no money
Wide public engagement, especially the younger
generation
Work with desire, rather than pessimism
Tool which works in workshops as well as on the web
Balance between encouraging creativity and making
analysis tractable
Allow general public to engage with a complex technical
area
CANVASSES
Started from a blank canvas metaphor
Gave people the building blocks to create a picture of their
future life
Combine:
Images: visually appealing, immediate, limited selection
Text: open ended, harder to analyse, allows for more
depth
Find areas of life where personal decisions have impacts
on land use:
Eating habits, housing choices, transport requirements etc.
INTERFACE DESIGN
DEMOGRAPHICS AND COMPARISON
USER SURVEY RESULTS
The fun visual style was appreciated by most people (87%)
but some really disliked it.
Closed set of images was frustrating for some people
Contextualisation with other respondents was appreciated,
but the interface needs work
Doing the task made participants engage with their future
and what their decisions meant
Lead to curiosity about how this relates to EU policy
Opportunity to tie into more substantive learning what
are the effects of choices? What kinds of people are out
there?
DRAWINGS VS. PHOTOGRAPHS
Stylistically consistent
Tailored exactly to
description
Not free
No copyright issues
Cartoonish style puts some
people off
Closed set hard to add to
Less regionally specific
Many free images
available lots of
choice, flexibility
Can have copyright
issues
Varying quality, tones,
saturation etc.
Brings extra
information
CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Questionnaires
Little
engagement
Low commitment
Easy to manage
and analyse
Dynamic
Questionnaires
Sense of creativity
Low commitment
Easy to manage
and analyse
Serious Games
Deep
engagement
High commitment
Major effort to
manage and
analyse

worldwithoutoil.org

Takhtamysheva & Smeddinck 2012,
slaveryfootprint.org

USE IN WORKSHOPS
Closed,
structured
Personal
Open, semi-
structured
Deeper:
Spatial
relationships
Connections to
wider issues
Required more
support
THANKS FOR
LISTENING
Going live in the next few weeks:
www.life2040.eu


Thanks to co-creators: Joske Houtkamp, Marc Metzger, Inge
La Riviere, Marta Perez-Soba, James Paterson, Anne Jensen
Supported by VOLANTE (Visions of Land Use Transitions)
and SociaM (Theory and Practice of Social Machines)
projects