Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

Gold
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Share the love for this talk
Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
Speakers: Nicole Aleong
Link:

Summary

UX research is inherently future-oriented. As researchers, we are often on the lookout to understand what users expect, what they anticipate to happen, and what they hope will come next. How we orient ourselves towards the future is part of how we experience the present. By drawing attention to the nuances of different future orientations in everyday life, we can unlock new depths of understanding to improve product and service design. Join this session to learn how to center the future as an object of study and apply frameworks from futures anthropology to advance tactical and strategic research.

Key Insights

  • Time is experienced uniquely by each individual, influencing how we relate to the present and future.

  • UX research is inherently future-focused but lacks frameworks to understand how users conceptualize the future.

  • Futures anthropology is a cross-cultural, ethnographic approach that centers the future as an object of study.

  • Six distinct future orientations—expectation, anticipation, speculation, potential, hope, and destiny—offer lenses to analyze user mindset and behavior.

  • These orientations overlap and manifest differently throughout a user journey, revealing emotional and cognitive states.

  • In practical UX work, futures anthropology helps identify user needs and informs design and feature prioritization, as shown in Nicole’s government funding application project.

  • Speculation often appears as hesitation or pauses in user behavior, signaling uncertainty about future outcomes.

  • Hope and destiny reflect positive and fixed narratives users hold about their futures, which can be critical for motivation or mindset.

  • Not all communities have equal access to future orientations; marginalized groups may face constrained or different future imaginaries.

  • Integrating futures anthropology requires reflexivity in research identity and methodology, extending from data collection to team collaboration and strategic planning.

Notable Quotes

"There are over 7 billion futures of right now."

"How we orient ourselves to the future impacts how we experience the present."

"Expectation describes how things ought to be and reinforces the distinction between the present and what is not yet here."

"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."

"Speculation fills in the gaps where past experience fails us, often seen in hesitation or pauses."

"Potential refers to not yet actualized possibilities that may or may not come to fruition."

"Hope generates optimistic momentum towards a possibility becoming real."

"Destiny is the belief that a certain future outcome is predetermined regardless of the path."

"Not everyone has the same capacity to aspire to a future; this is critical when working with marginalized communities."

"We have a role to play in democratizing the future and amplifying more visions of what that future can hold."

Ask the Rosenbot
Nalini Kotamraju
Research After UX
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Milan Guenther
The $212 billion ‘so what?’: unlocking impact in development cooperation
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Gabrielle Verderber
Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Melissa Tsang
From Insights to Action: Driving Business Values through DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Lija Hogan
Practical Principles of Inclusive Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Building impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 1: The new product journey
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Dave Hora
Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Brian T. O’Neill
Does Designing and Researching Data Products Powered by ML/AI and Analytics Call for New UX Methods?
2022 • QuantQual Interest Group
Bria Alexander
Day 3 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Josh Clark
Sentient Design: New Design Patterns for New Experiences (3rd of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Erika Flowers
AI-Readiness: Preparing NASA for a Data-Driven, Agile Future
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Crystal Philcox
The Many Faces of Operations
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Bria Alexander
Welcome
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Jackie Velasquez-Ross
Talent Acquisition and Our Responsibility
2020 • DesignOps Community
Jake Burghardt
Finding More Inroads into Research Impact
2026 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Yunyan Li

"Love principle is about emotionally supporting users, celebrating achievements, and creating visually beautiful products."

Yunyan Li Anna Le Jen Kim

UX Best Practices

June 11, 2021

Allan Lowson

"We went from stitching wireframes to actually designing in code—no more simulacra."

Allan Lowson

Rehashing the Double Diamond: Collaborating across functions with AI-assisted prototyping

June 9, 2026

Denise Jacobs

"We’re not going for perfection. We’re going for excellence and change."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Renee Bouwens

"Every report should say this research is tied to this KPI, here’s the outcome we want to address."

Renee Bouwens

Landing Product Impact: Aligning Research as a Foundational Driver for Delivering the World’s Best Products

December 15, 2023

Jemma Ahmed

"Knowledge multiplies the more it is shared; enabling others makes your insights stronger, not your position weaker."

Jemma Ahmed Steve Carrod Chris Geison Dr. Shadi Janansefat Christopher Nash

Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

July 24, 2024

Sam Ladner

"When you mix trends together, you will see where change is likely to occur."

Sam Ladner

How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight

March 9, 2022

Yoel Sumitro

"Knowing in action is the intuition practiced by competent designers, a core of artistry."

Yoel Sumitro

Actions and Reflections: Bridging the Skills Gap among Researchers

March 9, 2022

Dave Hora

"Monitoring for weak signals and early signs of emergence is as important as intervention itself."

Dave Hora

Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations

August 27, 2025

Daniel J. Rosenberg

"The marketplace is going to decide if it’s close enough in cost-benefit tradeoff."

Daniel J. Rosenberg

Designing with and for Artificial Intelligence

August 11, 2022