Designing What Doesn’t Exist (Yet)
- Rachel A.Wood
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
How Co-Design and Design Fiction Challenge the Innovator’s Dilemma
Originally published: Designing What Doesn’t Exist (Yet) – Design@Open
A few months ago, I was starting to think about early prototypes for my research. As the result of this I looked at different ways to encourage new ideas. I started to read further about design fiction, and how it could be used for both innovation and in my research case social innovation.
If we’re honest, the most difficult problems in designing services rarely come from lack of good intention or purpose, they come from the gravitational pull of the present. Organisations and systems naturally focus on improving what they already do for the people they already serve. This is efficient in the short term but, as Clayton Christensen famously argued in The Innovator’s Dilemma, it can make us unable to foresee or ready for the next wave of change (Christensen, 1997).
The double diamond of design, dovetailed with design fiction, co-design and the innovators dilemma
As in my previous experience in practice, and in my current research in the form of parenting education and support, this pulls toward “business as usual” that can lock us into outdated models of service delivery even as family structures, economic realities, and technology rapidly evolve.
So, how do we imagine, and then design what doesn’t exist yet?
One answer lies in the fusion of co-design and design fiction. Together, they give us a way to look past incremental tweaks and instead explore new futures in rich, tangible ways. And importantly, they give us a structured way to bring communities, parents, practitioners, and policymakers into that exploration.
The Innovator’s Dilemma in Parenting Support
Christensen’s dilemma describes a paradox: the very factors that make organisations successful (strong relationships with current users, efficient systems, steady funding) can make them resistant to positively disruptive innovations (Christensen, 1997; Yu & Hang, 2010).
In services, this might look like:
Funding cycles that reward proven interventions over experimental ones.
A service model optimised for current demographics, even as needs shift.
Risk-averse cultures that prioritise safe delivery over speculative exploration (Mulgan, 2014).
In parenting support, this could mean continuing to design courses and resources for a “typical” family archetype, even when lived realities are shifting toward single parents, blended families, kinship carers, or digitally networked parenting communities. It could mean sticking to in-person group sessions when hybrid or asynchronous models could better meet needs. In my specific research there is a very real need to look at innovating for parents who are temporarily or permanently separated from their children.
If we follow the traditional ‘playbook,’ we might only respond once those changes are too big to ignore.
Enter Design Fiction and Co-Design
Design fiction is the practice of making tangible artefacts, stories, or media from imagined futures not as predictions, but as provocations (Bleecker, 2009; Coulton et al., 2017). Goodness me, I do love a provotype (early prototypes) as my focus group method will attest. Co-design of these brings stakeholders into the creative process as equal contributors (Sanders & Stappers, 2008).
When combined, the two can help us see and feel futures before they arrive, and then collaboratively decide how to shape them. They offer a way to counter the Innovator’s Dilemma by:
Making disruption safe to explore: Imagined artefacts aren’t binding; they invite curiosity, not commitment.
Shifting perspectives: Participants can step into future contexts and test their own assumptions.
Bridging imagination and strategy: Futures explored in fiction can be reverse engineered into present-day pilots.
Strength-Based Opportunities for Adoption
Rather than focusing on the barriers, it’s more energising to see the strengths that design fiction and co-design bring to parenting education:
Catalysts for fresh thinking – Tangible artefacts (mock leaflets, future app interfaces, prototype policy documents) can prompt new ideas faster than reports or data tables.
Safe space for future risk-testing – Fictional settings give permission to explore radical change without political or reputational risk.
Capacity-building opportunity – Every design fiction workshop doubles as training in foresight, systems thinking, and creative problem-solving.
Flexible early-stage exploration – Futures work strengthens business cases by showing you’ve explored multiple possibilities before committing to one.
Conversation starter across silos – Artefacts make it easier for practitioners, parents, and policymakers to talk about the same future scenario.
Bridge from imagination to action – When linked to co-design, speculative work can lead to clear pilots, prototypes, and incremental steps toward the future vision.
Best positioned to benefit – Those most embedded in “business as usual” have the most to gain from stepping briefly outside it.
Example Design Fiction: Passport for Mums - not valid until 2035
This is where you would invite readers to imagine what it might feel like to be a new mother in 2035, receiving this passport, and then use co-design questions to explore its implications, benefits, and risks.
Why This Matters for Parenting Education and Support
The parenting journey is deeply shaped by social norms, economic conditions, and available resources. Services designed for one era may be mismatched for another. For example, a parenting programme developed in the early 2000s may implicitly assume:
One primary caregiver with flexible daytime availability.
Reliable transport to attend sessions.
A strong local network of extended family.
Fast-forward to the 2030s and those assumptions could be far less common. Economic pressures, migration, digital communities, and new work patterns will reshape how parenting happens.
If we’re not exploring those futures now, we risk offering support that feels outdated or inaccessible to the very families who most need it.
Moving from Fiction to Action
Here’s where the “dilemma” part becomes an opportunity. Design fiction doesn’t just provoke thought—it creates artefacts that can anchor co-design workshops, policy debates, and pilot funding pitches.
A fictional “Parenting Support Passport” might lead to:
Prototyping digital equivalents for today’s families.
Identifying gaps in current onboarding for new parents.
Creating a unified service touchpoint across agencies.
By starting with something playful and speculative, we can surface needs and opportunities that might never appear in traditional consultation.
Final Thoughts
The Innovator’s Dilemma isn’t a trap we have to fall into. With co-design and design fiction, we have the tools to safely explore beyond the edge of our current services without losing sight of what works now.
In parenting education and support, where the stakes are generational, the cost of not exploring the future is far higher than the risk of imagining it. Through the seminal work of David Farrington (e.g. 2008) and others, we know this only too well.
References:
Bleecker, J. (2009) Design Fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact, and fiction. Near Future Laboratory.
Christensen, C.M. (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Coulton, P., Lindley, J., Sturdee, M. and Stead, M. (2017) Design fiction as world building. Proceedings of Research Through Design Conference 2017. Edinburgh: RTD.
Farrington, D.P. and Welsh, B.C., (2008). Saving children from a life of crime: Early risk factors and effective interventions.
Mulgan, G. (2014) Design in Public and Social Innovation: What works and what could work better. London: Nesta.
Sanders, E.B.-N., and Stappers, P.J. (2008) Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), pp.5–18.
Yu, D. and Hang, C.C. (2010) A reflective review of disruptive innovation theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(4), pp.435–452.
