DesignOps Global Conference 2022

Presenter Profile: Matthew Cockerill is an independent strategic design consultant dedicated to bringing more imagination and vision to the development of future digital products and connected hardware. Through design-led special projects, he helps uncover brands’ unexpected, relevant near-future product opportunities, with the aim of inspiring strategic decision-making today and accelerating product development. From helping to design the world’s first ethical and modular smartphone for Fairphone to creating new UX possibilities for Samsung’s folding screens and exploring the future of mixed reality in the home for HTC, Matthew has solved complex and ambiguous design challenges for some of the world’s best technology brands, agencies, and ambitious scale-ups. Most recently, he helped Sky explore the future potential of its new Sky Glass streaming TV platform by creating new smart home experiences and products that informed their strategic decision making and product development roadmap.

Presentation Title: The design principles for breaking new ground

Outline: The speaker session will explore the design and innovation process needed for radical change and design for emerging platforms when organisations cannot rely on past experiences, data, and user needs. For example – rehearsing the future utilising theatrical techniques, and prototyping the consumer experience, not the product itself. Matthew will explain how thinking back from 2030 helps reframe organisations’ thinking and uncover unexpected and still untapped opportunities. How future design visions can be effective in informing strategic decision making and product development today whilst avoiding the pitfalls of typical future concepts. He will illustrate this process with two speculative design works: The last iMac you’ll ever need – trans-generational products, looking beyond repair and recycling of consumer electronics becoming table stakes for organisations and considers an end to the current never-ending stream of new products. A circular design approach requires systemic change to allow design teams to welcome back their old generations of products utilising remanufacturing and upgrading forever. Mixed reality futures – smart homes of the future, where the physical and digital are more intimately connected to enable new products and services. It’s a tool to stimulate debate within organisations to increase innovation potential within emerging platforms like the metaverse.

Company Website: https://www.matthew-cockerill.com