Public Futures: Data, Rights, Design

Abstract

The progressive consolidation of legal design as an approach aimed at making law more accessible and comprehensible highlights the need to train designers capable of applying design tools consciously and appropriately to the specificities of regulatory contexts and, more broadly, the public sector. The integration of visual communication design methodologies with the requirements of public institutions paves the way for the introduction of innovative practices into governance processes, going beyond the mere application of design thinking. This paper explores the role of speculative design as an approach capable of supporting legal and institutional innovation in the public sector, with particular attention to its methodological and educational implications.

Through a teaching experiment conducted in collaboration with central Italian administrations, the research examines how narrative and visual practices can be integrated into anticipatory governance processes. From this perspective, speculative design, in its narrative dimension, functions as an exploratory and anticipatory tool, capable of prefiguring potential outcomes, criticalities, and interdependencies arising from policy decisions. The study proposes a replicable methodological model for training public-sector designers and for integrating speculative narratives into decision-making processes, offering a contribution to the reflection on innovation practices in the public sector.