I remember the first time I read books by authors such as Orhan Pamuk, Hermen Hesse, Milan Kundera, Graham Greene, Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Camus, Haruki Murakami, and many others. The pulled me into a new world and gave me new ways  “to see.”

In order to “see”, you have to look at the darker side of life too. Dystopian novels specialize on dissecting that darker side.

ILLUSTRATION: R. KIKUO JOHNSON

The current issue of The New Yorker has a must-read piece by Laural Miller, “Fresh Hell: What’s behind the boom in dystopian fiction for young readers?” Miller reviews a handful of young-adult dystopian novels. Here a are few she mentions:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins where young children from different districts compete in gladiatorial matches to the death televised to the entire public.
• Uglies by Scott Westerfield where “all sixteen-year-olds undergo surgery to conform to a universal standard of prettiness determined by evolutionary biology.”
• The Maze Runner by James Dashn , where “teen-age boys awaken, all memories of their previous lives wiped clean, in a walled compound surrounded by monster-filled labyrinth.

The new rush of dystopian novels, although bleak, are not as dark as adult dystopian novels because they hold out hope for the young audience they written for – promising a “new, better way of life [that] can be assembled from the ruins.” Miller, says the books are taken by the young generation consuming as a reflection of current reality. “For young readers, dystopia isn’t a future to be averted; it’s a version of what’s already happening int he world they inhabit.”

I find it fascinating that a generation is gorging on these novels.

So, What can product designers learn from dystopia?  Certainly, there is something around human behavior that the books help elucidate.

As the world gets washed over in social technology, the emergence of new social behavior provides a fertile ground for designers. If discerned early, the behaviors of a new generation can make a product delivered at the right time widely successful. And conversely, a product delivered at the wrong time will languish. Concerning technology, the rule of thumb has always been to launch a new product in the correct technology environment. If CPU’s are going to be 3x faster when you launch in 2 years, then build whatever you are doing for those speedy CPUs.

The same applies for behavioral environments. Yet there isn’t a Moore’s Law of behavior that I know of. Hence, the importance to hone your intuition about culture. There is a bleak side of life – where social pressures are brutal and human rights violations stream over YouTube.

Inspired by the dystopia, I’ve translated two classic deliverables into versions that are bleaker. It’s a first stab and rough, but here they are.

(1) Ugly personas and (2) Dangerous use cases

Ugly Personas: Personas, which are archetypical representations pulled from observing people tend to be rosy. Gina, the busy, professional mother who multi-tasks while raising two daughters. Bla-bla-blah. People aren’t always lovely.

It would be nice if a few personas were “ugly personas”that represent some archetyical awful customer – the dictator who buys the iPad. It’s harder to get at because people observed or talked to tend to be nicer. The nuances and little moments where awfulness live away from the spotlight and get missed by researchers.

Dangerous Use Cases:
Personas can feed into writing use cases, the scenarios of how you’re customers will interact with the product. The basic formula for a use a case is actor + system = goal. As with personas, use cases tend to be hopeful. A knife is used for cutting fruit not stabbing people. A cell phone is used for seamless communication, not a device that makes you run over people or send hate messages.

Dangerous use cases are where your product is used in negative ways.

It might seem odd to do suggest doing this. Shouldn’t product designers design for the best? Yes but it’s harder then ever to ignore the negative parts of humanity because the horrible things that happen across the globe are a click of a link away.

My thesis, then, is by assembling and tinkering with the ruins of the environment, you can build something better suited for it. Instead of basing optimistic design on optimism, base design on, say, the chaotic psyches of a teenage world.

What might emerge from an analysis that has some bleakness built in, might be surprising wonderful.

This piece is a stab at thinking this through. Comments welcome from anyone who comes across this post.

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