Orientations to the Future in UX, Business and Policy Worlds

The case follows how the 2019 publication of The Anthropology of the Future (Bryant & Knight 2019, Cambridge University Press) has been put to work in the consultancy world, engaging product design and user experience communities.

The impact of Daniel M. Knight's research is located in how people plan for the future in the present through 'orientations' such as hope, speculation, potential, anticipation, and expectation and how this has been adopted and applied to businesses and government policy institutions. If companies or organisations ('product designers') better understand the differences in how people hope for, speculate about, and expect their futures they can be proactive in planning innovation.

The work looks at UX (user experience) communities and how their experiences and expectations for the future can feed into product design (be it policy or material products). It also engages with consultants and product design partners in the UK and North America in incorporating UX feedback into innovation.