Overview

The Trust/2030 project imagines what society might look like in the near future. In partnership with Hitachi’s Vision Design team at the Global Center for Social Innovation Tokyo, our charter was to understand trust within society today and how changes in our world will impact our inclination to trust in the future.

Following in-depth research around changing attitudes to trust across a range of industries and aspects of society, the team envisaged three diverging timelines. These alternate future scenarios trace differing paths from the present day to the year 2030, shaped by society’s reactions to various landmark events. Each scenario provides a glimpse into three alternative scenarios of trust within society, through the objects that citizens carry with them every day.

Read more at www.trust2030.com.

Offerings

Product Design
Prototyping
Research & Insights
Speculative Design

“Trust has become a critical factor for businesses. As it continues to motivate and dominate our society, it is becoming increasingly apparent that new products and services must factor in the role trust plays in this relationship. We believe that trust will be one of the key macro trends that influences the way our world works in the future.”

Takuya Akashi, Service Designer, Hitachi

Speculative Design

Approach

Hitachi started their own research around the future of trust and commissioned Method as a co-creation partner to lend a Western perspective to the topic. The process was collaborative, with the Method team guiding a structured methodology for moving from research to insights through to the creation of the speculative futures.

We envisioned three speculative societies and their three parallel future scenarios for the year 2030. The three speculative 2030 societies were brought to life through collections of objects that citizens would use on a day to day basis. Each object tells its own story about life in 2030, and in combination, they paint a richer vision of these future scenarios.

Does increased transparency of information lead to higher levels of trust in society?

2030 Society One: Decentralized & Transparent

A major data leak exposing a gross Human Rights violation by a public official forces the government to create a transparent, data-driven society. Information we used to think of as private is now shared openly by organizations and individuals alike. All areas of our lives are fully transparent: we can access health records online, research what is in our food and find out how much our colleagues earn. Citizens put trust in big institutions because they believe the full transparency movement keeps them accountable and makes products and services more predictable.

Would you put all of your trust in one company in exchange for the convenience of fully personalized products and services?

2030 Society Two: Centralized & Curated

A series of government data leaks shatters the trust citizens had once put into their elected leaders. Big businesses see an opportunity to provide people with the security they crave. Citizens decide to choose one corporation to take care of all their daily needs, from food to entertainment. In exchange for their personal data, consumers get to benefit from fully personalized products. Prices fall and services become more streamlined, making life for the average person more efficient. In this society, brand loyalty and trust is at an all-time high.

Would you give up modern-day conveniences and take responsibility for all aspects of your life to guarantee your personal security?

2030 Society Three: Distributed & Autonomous

Once a series of data leaks expose the shaky foundation on which the current government had been built, citizens quickly lose faith in all public institutions, including banks. A major financial crisis follows and forces people to reorganize society completely. Small communities begin to form who provide their own currency and power, allowing them to exist completely independently. By reverting to physical security systems, data hacks are no longer an issue. Self-reliance trumps trust in this society.

Physical artifacts facilitate meaningful discussions

The choice of objects themselves was strategic to create talking points relevant to Hitachi’s business units - we were able to imply various facets of future scenarios while leaving some questions unanswered and open to debate. They allow Hitachi to instigate conversations across a wide range of industries, for example focusing on the future of trust within the energy sector or healthcare.