A design fiction project exploring equity-first public queue infrastructure in Sweden, 2035.
QueueLens is a speculative interface created as part of a university master's course in Design for Creative and Immersive Technology. Using the Design Fiction method, the project imagines a fictional Swedish public service called QueueLens that governs how citizens access queues for healthcare, government offices, libraries, and other civic services in the year 2035.
The deliverable takes the form of a fully rendered subreddit community — r/QueueLensSE — where fictional citizens discuss, debate, celebrate, and criticise the QueueLens system. The interface is built as a realistic frontend prototype and serves as a provocation to examine questions of algorithmic fairness, civic equity, accessibility, and the social consequences of scoring systems.
Design Fiction is a practice that uses storytelling and speculative artefacts to explore the implications of emerging technologies before they arrive. Rather than predicting the future, it asks: what kind of future do we want, and what dangers must we anticipate?
This project applies that lens to public queue management. QueueLens imagines a world where a government algorithm called the QueueScore orders citizens' access to services based on a civic reliability index known as Q-IQ. The subreddit functions as a community artefact that reveals the social friction, inequities, and unintended consequences this system produces — from elderly citizens whose scores decline due to illness, to people being rejected from dating apps because of low Q-IQ scores.
The project is intentionally provocative. It is not an endorsement of algorithmic scoring systems. It is a critique delivered through fiction.
QueueLens operates on five stated policy pillars:
| Pillar | Description |
|---|---|
| Weekly Wait-Time Budget | Every citizen receives an equal weekly allowance of queue time |
| Analog Parity | Offline and phone-based access must match digital quality |
| Appeal API | All algorithmic decisions are subject to transparent human review |
| Data Minimisation | Only the minimum data required to run the queue is collected |
| Green Windows | Appointments are optimised around low-carbon transport windows |
The system also exposes two scores to citizens and, controversially, to private actors:
- QueueScore (QS) — used internally to order civic service access
- Q-IQ (Civic Reliability Index) — a public-facing attendance and reliability score that has been misappropriated by employers, dating apps, and private clubs
The prototype renders a full subreddit page with the following elements:
- Sticky navigation header with dark and light mode toggle and a text-to-speech accessibility button
- Site-wide information banner about the QueueLens service
- Subreddit hero banner with the five policy pillars
- A mixed post feed including pinned moderator announcements, community posts across multiple flairs (News, Help, Rant, PSA, Investigations, Leak, Guide, Accessibility, Satire, Success, Event), and interspersed sponsored posts from fictional civic-tech companies
- Moderator pinned comments on sensitive posts with Q-IQ misuse warnings
- Upvote and downvote interaction on all posts
- Hover-to-reveal image captions for accessibility
- A full sidebar with an About section, Glossary of key terms, a Q-IQ Misuse Warning card, AutoModerator rules, Quick Links, disclosed system restrictions, live accessibility toggle switches, and Community Rules
- A footer with a design fiction disclosure notice
No build tools, no package installation, and no server are required.
Steps:
-
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/sakib13/QueueLens.git
-
Open the file directly in any modern web browser:
QueueLens/index.html
That is all. The file is fully self contained. All images are bundled in the public/ folder and load automatically relative to index.html.
Tip: For the best experience, use a Chromium or Firefox based browser. The page defaults to dark mode and can be toggled to light mode via the button in the top right corner.
This prototype was built using:
| Technology | Role |
|---|---|
| Next.js 16 | Original development framework |
| React 19 | Component architecture |
| TypeScript | Type-safe component and data authoring |
| Tailwind CSS v4 | Utility-first styling |
| shadcn/ui | Radix UI component primitives |
| Lucide React | Icon system |
| Standalone HTML | Self-contained export for local distribution |
The index.html file at the repository root is a standalone export that translates the full Next.js interface into plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with no external dependencies. This means anyone can open it without a development environment.
QueueLens/
├── index.html # Standalone, dependency-free version of the page
├── app/
│ ├── page.tsx # Root page composition
│ ├── layout.tsx # HTML shell and metadata
│ └── globals.css # Theme tokens and global styles
├── components/
│ ├── subreddit-header.tsx
│ ├── site-banner.tsx
│ ├── subreddit-banner.tsx
│ ├── post-feed.tsx
│ ├── post-card.tsx
│ ├── subreddit-sidebar.tsx
│ └── ui/ # shadcn/ui component library
├── lib/
│ ├── posts-data.ts # All fictional post and comment content
│ └── utils.ts
└── public/ # All images used in the prototype
If you prefer to run the full development environment:
pnpm install
pnpm devThen open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.
Requires Node.js 18 or later and pnpm.
This project was produced as part of the MSc in Design for Creative and Immersive Technology programme. The Design Fiction method was applied to examine the downstream social and ethical implications of civic algorithmic infrastructure. The subreddit format was chosen because it captures emergent, unfiltered community responses — the kind of lived experience that formal policy documents rarely surface.
QueueLens is a work of design fiction. The QueueLens system, all scores, all posts, all usernames, all companies, and all policy documents depicted are entirely fictional. Nothing in this prototype represents a real product, service, or government initiative. The project is a critical design exercise intended to provoke reflection, not to endorse algorithmic civic scoring.
This project is released for academic and educational purposes. All fictional content, interface design, and code are original work produced for the MSc programme.