That Crazy World We’ll Live in : Emotions and Anticipations of Radical Future Technology Design

Humans behave towards and experience technological design in conflicting and contradictory ways. On the one hand, the very mention of the word ‘future’ conjures expectations of the radically new and unexpected. On the other hand, previous research has shown that people have a threshold for the level of change and the unexpected that they can cope with. Their expectations are dominated by mental images of familiar associations with what has been previously associated with the future. As a rule, humans cope with incremental changes, yet have difficulty accepting the entirely unfamiliar. This makes it harder to imagine a future of radical technology design and interactions, particularly when attempting to predict possible emotional outcomes. This chapter describes the emotional balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar in design creations, which has also been observed in theories such as the Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA) theory. The MAYA theory emphasises the complexity and irony of incremental versus radical changes in renewing design language and technological systems for the future. By carefully observing classical cases of previous game-changing technological innovations, including their hype and acceptance curves, a model is proposed that illustrates how a radical design future may be achieved by tapping into emotional, ideological and interactive logic, rather than formalistic (material-based) design choices. This chapter highlights the role that culture and cultural discourse play in cognition and emotions when considering future technology design in terms of ‘thinking outside the box’.