Design games as a tool, a mindset and a structure Kirsikka Vaajakallio

Due to the strong focus on design games, the three case studies became
formulated around them. The focus came from the research questions
addressed in the project concerning how to apply design games and drama-inspired
methods in service design and from my research interest on
design games. However, as demonstrated in this and the next chapter, this
design games driven approach worked well and it has been applied later
on, to establish other design research projects. I will describe it next in
a more general level, and then in next sections I will move on towards
empirical examples.
In design games driven co-design, several design games facilitate a collaborative
knowledge creation process that pays attention to user insights,
company representatives’ personal insights and competence and researchers’
views. In the development process of the “Co-designing University”
case discussed earlier we were the potential users with other participants
but we also worked as external consultants. Since those persons who continued
the development project from that point on were not part of designing
the design games, but only took part in playing them, it brought up the challenges
of communicating/delivering insights gained outside the actual codesign
gatherings. To face this challenge the design games driven approach
engages partners all the way from creating a project vision to designing and
playing a design game (Figure 30). Thus, co-design among the core team who
works in the case study is not limited to co-design gatherings, which, however,
can be seen as milestones or culmination points in the process.
Design games may be arranged more than once, and there may also be
several different design game gatherings depending on the resources and
needs of the particular project. We aimed to start co-design from the very
beginning by creating a common vision for the coming activities by playing
the first design game (Project Planning Game) with the core project
team (Figure 30).
The general process can be divided into four main steps: 1) Design
game for establishing the project vision with the core development team
and with the project manager from the partnering company; 2) Preparations
for co-design through user studies; 3) Designing a design game with
members of the core development team; 4) A design game driven co-design
gathering for diverse participants (Figure 31). In the beginning of the project
the wanted direction/path is partly unknown like is typical of concept
design, where an explicit need, problem, or technology is not necessarily
addressed. Instead the focus, with more specific design problems and
questions, is found gradually in the reflective process of experimentation,
user study and co-design.
Although some level of ambiguity is an essential part of co-design process
that is guided through iterative learning, the first game, which focuses
on visioning the coming process, sets some initial boundaries for the next
steps. Because of the activities built on the previous phases, the process is
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