Projected data points are rarely combined and connected across sectors to tell a more encompassing story of the future. What if we present the data, alone but assembled, to tell its own story?

As data points start to grow and co-exist, connections emerge. Scanning even one year of the timeline will paint an immediate - if fragmented - picture of how people will be living, where they will live, and who they will be. It suggests a snapshot of their health concerns and societal priorities, and gives an idea of the problems they’ll be facing and the transformation they may be living through.

Timeline also shows some of the limitations of the data that people choose to create and make widely available. One of the first things you’ll notice is that many of the in-between years are empty of information; we rarely pin our futures to 2037 or 2061, always to a nicely rounded milestone year like 2050 or 2070. Geographical focuses and gaps are also apparent.

Just as the map is not the territory, and all models are wrong but some are useful, Timeline’s intention is not to be accurate or to be proven right. The statistics here have been assembled to be contextualising, generative and provocative. The gaps between them, and the tensions and questions they throw into the air, are just as valuable as the data points themselves - if not more so.

This is an exercise in joining the dots between data and bringing futures to life through quantitative projections, presented simply. Timeline shows the projected and probable future. You are invited to draw your own inferences. If this future is unsatisfactory, there are other options.

Timeline was created and is maintained by Sarah Housley, a design futures researcher and the author of Designing Hope: Visions to Shape Our Future.

If you have data to add or withdraw, corrections, or feedback to submit, get in touch.

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