Hi,
I'm Roman

And I’m a designer and teacher with a focus on service design, speculative design and transition design.

 

I teach at the Department of Information and Library Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, and I guarantee a Master’s degree in Design of Information Services.

 

I like it when design does not just serve as a tool for replicating and repeating the same thing, but can be used for strategic planning and critical thinking about the future of commercial products as well as public services and society in general.

 

I also did my Ph.D. at Masaryk University, but in the Digital Culture and Creative Industries program.

What is this website for?

This website serves as a presentation of part of my dissertation research on the use of speculative design and design fiction in public sector innovation.

 

In this case, mental health policies. As part of the research I conducted participatory workshops with people suffering from, for example, ADHD, anxiety or panic disorder. In the light of the psychiatric reform in the Czech Republic, it seemed to me that not much space is devoted to these relatively common diagnoses, but which are encountered by a large number of the population and directly affect their professional and personal lives.

 

Thus, the workshops have produced prototypes of technologies that, although seemingly not feasible, address the needs and problems of the target groups to the maximum extent possible. My aim, then, in relation to theories of design fiction, was not to create these technologies, but rather to use them as a means to discuss how we want to address the situation of sick people on a systemic level.

 

After all, given that these technologies occurred to the participants in the first place, what does that say about the system in which they live? Their purpose is thus, among other things, to show data-driven realisations that, by their provocativeness, help to break free from stereotypes and help to free the imagination.

So how can you work with it?

In line with design fiction, technology should only be seen as a starting point around which to build a narrative of a possible future.

 

Try to think of technology in the same way as the ring from Lord of the Rings, the gesture-controlled interface in Minority Report, or the automated voice assistant from Her.

 

All these artifacts do not serve as the goals of individual films, but as points around which a story is formed with all the social, economic or even environmental aspects and issues that would not have occurred to us without the very existence of these artifacts.

 

I, for example, worked with the Black Mirror Brainstorms method by UX designer Joshua Mauldin as part of my research. The method is based on several steps, where you first identify the economic, social and political aspects of a given technology and then create an episode of Black Mirror, including a poster.

 

This then serves as a key deterrent narrative, which you can then bring back to the present and consider systemic solutions for the people concerned in such a way that these sci-fi technologies, for example, don’t even cross their minds.

Thank to

First and foremost to my wife Veronika, who gave me the space and support to complete my dissertation.

 

Then I am very grateful to my supervisor and friend Laďka Zbiejczuk Suchá, who always managed to guide me, cut down my overgrown ambitions and support me.

 

Thank you to Žeňa Tokmak for her help with graphics, Tereza Navarová, Klára Peloušková and Erik Vaněk for their help with workshop facilitation.

Last but not least, a huge thank you to all the participants, both from the ranks of people diagnosed with mental illness, who will not be named here for obvious reasons, as well as officials, bureaucrats and policymakers, especially Eva Nečasová from the South Moravian Agency for Public Innovation, Pavla Kovářová as the regional coordinator for mental health and Marketa Pěchoučková from the Social Innovation Department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

Thanks for bringing these progressive approaches
to strategic planning in the public sector!