Predict Next Year's Headline is an ideation and foresight technique that asks participants to write a specific, dateline future news headline, set one year from now, that describes a significant development in the design space being explored. Unlike the 'Headlines from the Future' method that focuses on the product itself, this technique looks outward at the context: what technology shifts, regulatory changes, cultural movements, or competitive developments would most significantly reshape the design problem? Writing specific headlines forces participants to make concrete the vague future scenarios they usually hold as background assumptions.
Predict Next Year's Headline
Writing specific future headlines to stress-test your design against what comes next
A
Designers Academy
24 February 2026 · 4 min read
DesignMethods
In brief
Predict Next Year's Headline is an ideation and foresight technique where participants write specific, future news headlines about external developments like technology shifts or regulatory changes, to stress-test and reshape design problems.
