Some of the scenarios in the book include: Economic Peril (Luvvirsa: an exploration into even worse economic times) The world economy suffers a tremendous collapse. Whether due to lack or resources (or accessibility), too much demand, insecure speculation, or political conflict that destroys the carefully balanced and orchestrated coordination of trade between countries, all monetary systems are severely devalued and a majority of people have problems meeting subsistence needs—even in the developed world. Do people even worry about "brands" in this climate? Are they more concerned with quality, substance, or "real" value as a result? Or, are they even more oriented to products and services that help them make quick judgments and decisions about their needs? Are they so busy with survival that issues of style, fashion, and more ethereal concerns mostly go unaddressed? Is there a market still for design? Where are the opportunities for interaction and interface solutions and how can they be funded? How do designers sell the value of their work in a world where projects are cancelled, budgets are slashed, and corners are continuously cut? Consider what happens in developing communities now. What do people do when money isn’t available or there is no reliable monetary system. What happens when large natural disasters strike? What has happened in the past in tough economic times? De-Massification (Nyttidei: an exploration into personalization and customization) In a world where technologies have finally made it cost-effective—even profitable—to make customized products for customers of almost every type, people can now extensively customize their designs for cars, clothing, pre-made foods, jewelry, curricula, and pets just like many houses have been for a long time. What does this do to traditional products and services and what role does this play for design disciplines? If products can now be changed substantially, are they even the same products any more? Do brands disappear? Do designers become more important (to fill the desire for endless variety) or less important (as the design falls increasingly into the hands of customers? How do products and services compete when features and services are merely amalgams of features picked by consumers? Does the customization processes and experiences become the significant brand, interaction, and experience? Do product brands fade and corporate brands become more important? Consider what people do currently to customize the things around them. Consider hand-made foods, products, art, etc. How are these things valued? How are they designed and constructed? Re-Massification (Golinnbeg: an exploration into the failure of personalization and customization) Biotopia (as yet unnamed) Imagine a world where infections are engineered and desired. Imagine a world in which our relation to micro-organisms is one of symbiosis instead of fearful eradication. In Biotopia, we love the germs in our system and they’re engineered only for our particular metabolisms. In addition, medicine benefits from Injectable Tissue Engineering, Glycomics, Bioinformatics, and Proteomics. We regularly engineer, test, and manufacture low-cost personalized medicines to manage our health. Most forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and other serious diseases are treatable and highly manageable since they are infectious diseases. Genetic testing and therapies allow us control over our bodies. We eat food grown specifically for our genetic types (one of five) and purposely infect ourselves with viruses and bacteria in order to modulate our health. The more adventurous even modify their DNA (temporarily and permanently) to maximum fashion effects: glow-in-the-dark skin, horns, colorful (and “unnatural” skin and hair colors)—even scales. What opportunities does this offer designers? When everyone has their genome on a portable ID card, what new services might populate our world? How will information collection, processing, and visualization give designers new possibilities to solve difficult and complex challenges? How will the needs of the biotech community require interface/interaction/information design skills in order to accomplish their needs and their solutions? Nanoworld The world is populated by entire ecosystems of nanoscale devices. These reside in every product, practically pollute the environment, and even live inside us. They convert solar power on almost every surface, they beget massively parallel wireless sensor networks, they enable communication for people and devices (more of the later even than the former) and they control biological processes in crops, gardens, filtration systems, and our bodies. These devices are so small that we forget they exist but they enable Ubiquitous Computing in objects as diverse as drinking glasses, car keys, medicine, and books. These help us control our lives, track our things, and head-off both danger and disease before we even perceive the need—all with an air of almost magic since most of this is invisible. In such a world, what problems might arise with these kinds of technologies? What new roles and skills do designers need to play and learn? What opportunities does this provide for new materials, products, services, interactions, communications, and experiences? How might interfaces change when control happens on such a small scale? Latinoworld (as yet unnamed) Official language is now Spanish due to a winning initiative and a major push by California Hispanics with simpathetic votes from other minorities.

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