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Humor in design fiction to suspend disbelief and belief

Published: 29 September 2018 Publication History

Abstract

This paper investigates humor as a resource and strategy for design with discourse as an intended outcome. While humor can incite empathy and understanding, it can also lead to alienation and disengagement. Through the detailing of the pre-narrative and narrative processes of a design fiction, we describe why and how elements of humor, in particular puns, parody, and pastiche, were employed. Following the presentation of the fiction and its use in the design of an exhibition of diegetic prototypes, the paper presents responses from participants and audience members to reflect upon how the humor was received. Following a discussion on these reflections, as the near-future scenario was written four years prior and is now situated within the present-day, it then concludes with a post-mortem reflection on the floating nature of humor.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Trinity: A Design Fiction to Unravel the Present and Future Tensions in Professional Informatics and Awareness Support ToolsProceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3663384.3663396(1-15)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
  • (2024)Giggling in the Shower: Humor Increases the Acceptance of Technology-mediated Behavioral Interventions.Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650829(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)The thing that made me thinki-com10.1515/icom-2023-001922:2(161-171)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2023
  • Show More Cited By

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
NordiCHI '18: Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
September 2018
1002 pages
ISBN:9781450364379
DOI:10.1145/3240167
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 September 2018

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Author Tags

  1. design fiction
  2. future scenario
  3. humor
  4. satire
  5. sustainability

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NordiCHI'18
NordiCHI'18: Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
September 29 - October 3, 2018
Oslo, Norway

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NordiCHI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 59 of 240 submissions, 25%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 379 of 1,572 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Trinity: A Design Fiction to Unravel the Present and Future Tensions in Professional Informatics and Awareness Support ToolsProceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3663384.3663396(1-15)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
  • (2024)Giggling in the Shower: Humor Increases the Acceptance of Technology-mediated Behavioral Interventions.Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650829(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)The thing that made me thinki-com10.1515/icom-2023-001922:2(161-171)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2023
  • (2023)Provotyping Accountability: Exploring Smartphone Use in the Home through DesignProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3596024(1595-1609)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
  • (2023)“Information-Backward but Sex-Forward”: Navigating Masculinity towards Intimate Wellbeing and Heterosexual RelationshipsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581478(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
  • (2023)Interaction and Verisimilitude. How Narration Can Foster the Design ProcessMultidisciplinary Aspects of Design10.1007/978-3-031-49811-4_73(765-772)Online publication date: 31-Dec-2023
  • (2022)Noticing the Environment – A Design Ethnography of Urban FarmingNordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference10.1145/3546155.3546659(1-13)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2022
  • (2022)Skinny as a Bird: Design fiction as a vehicle for reflecting on food futuresFutures10.1016/j.futures.2022.102983141(102983)Online publication date: Aug-2022
  • (2020)Full Frontal Intimacy - on HCI, Design & IntimacyCompanion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3393914.3395889(123-129)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2020
  • (2020)Careful DesignCompanion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3393914.3395827(515-519)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2020
  • Show More Cited By

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