S, M, L XF

Experiential Futures (XF) are marvelous ways to provoke people to consider a possible future (Candy, 2010; Candy & Dunagan 2016). Even better if you can use XF to immerse people in a glimpse of a future that you are trying to bring about. They are a way to make an experience of a possible future tangible for other people.

Yet, I write this post because I find myself falling into the trap of thinking XF projects have to be complicated and fully immersive. However, even a small moment of imagining the future can make that vision more clear to others. And begin a rich conversation about what we do and do not want the future to hold.

Experiential Futures do take some work. They require imagination and craft. But let's talk about some of the Large, Medium, and Small ways to build them.

Large - Walk-in. 

Build a scene of a potential future that is interactive. This requires a clear vision of what is different in your future, a specific moment that can demonstrate how your future is different from the present, a plausible reason that strangers are walking into your scene and doing something, and costumes, props, and scenery to transport people into the future. For example, alongside CivicMakers and the amazing Virginia Hamilton, Hillary guided a process of collectively imagining a future where government had fully embraced co-designing. We then built two experiential futures for county government partners to literally 'step into' and experience what that future might feel like.

Video by Laureen Andalib at CivicMakers 2025: Thank you for time traveling!

Full-scale XF workshop: County government folks gathered to hear at demo of a fictional technology for including client voices in government decision-making. (Photo by Laureen Andalib 2025)

Medium - Hand-held.

Stuart Candy describes these as 'artifacts from the future', and Nick Foster and Julian Bleeker describe these as 'design fictions'. Rather than building out an immersive scene and storyline, you can hand people a provocation in the form of an object that looks as if it arrives through time travel into your hands. For example, this could be

• a brochure from the job fair of the future

• an advertisement for a new type of food

• a new way of celebrating.

  
  

  It should show, not tell, that the future is different. And when you hand it to another person, they can imagine the everyday moment that would surround this artifact in the future.

Medium sized Experiential Future: Artifact from a possible future created as a collaboration with CiviciMakers. A brochure describes the Celebrating Impact Awards that could be possible when government embraces co-design and celebrates community successes.  (Photo by Laureen Andalib 2025)

Small - Play.

A third way to engage people in thinking tangibly about a possible future is to ask them to imagine with you. You can describe the qualities of a potential future and invite people to play a modification of the Candy & Watson game, Thing from the Future. That game ask people to imagine things that would exist in futures prompted by a deck of cards. But to invite people to focus on a specific vision of the future, you can skip the shuffled cards and use only the prompts that help people to imagine everyday moments that would occur in your future story.

For example, In a future where government has fully embraced co-design, what would we see?

• What new celebrations might there be?

• What new jobs?

• What new infrastructure?

• How would citizens see that their government is working differently?

This can be a fun way to ask people to actively imagine what your vision means for everyday life.

Small XF: An example of from the game Thing from the Future. The prompt asks people to brainstorm things that would exist "In a chaotic future where there is a ritual related to the outdoors." (Image by Hillary Carey)