Speculative Design and Requirements Engineering:

The design space of conventional RE is bounded by cultural, ethical, legislative, social, etc. constraints that often go largely unquestioned because they are considered out of scope. These constraints are facets of a world that, by some measures, has become increasingly volatile in recent years. This is due to a range of factors, including, but not restricted to, technological disruption. In particular, increased use is being made of machine intelligence, the benefits of which must be weighed against (e.g.) sensitivity to what data sets are used and opacity of operation. Hence, not only is it becoming harder to understand the world in which software will operate, the effect that the software will have on the world is also becoming harder to predict. We need to find ways of looking over the horizon; of not simply creating the requirements of a system to operate in a probable (near) future world but given that the probable might be subject to significant uncertainty, in plausible future worlds. A number of techniques related to design thinking are designed to explore just these kinds of expanded problem and solution spaces, and it is no coincidence that interest in design thinking has been gaining some traction in RE in recent years. However, design thinking’s focus is on probable futures, while plausible worlds are the domain of speculative practices like design fiction. Perhaps fact and fiction can be combined in useful ways for RE’s goals. Topics we have explored include, but need not be limited to:

• What can RE learn from recent examples of systems that have inadvertently harmed business, society or people?

• What can RE learn from design fiction and speculative strategies?