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

As was illustrated, the development of the design games was guided by
the particular needs found in the case studies, but this was also due to the
observations from the earlier cases and experiments, as reported in the
previous chapters. Therefore the earlier experiments can also be considered
as prototypes, which gradually prepared my skills as a design game
designer to consider play-qualities and game materials in co-design gatherings,
as will be elaborated further on the next chapter. Furthermore,
the Extreme Design project with three case studies facilitated through
design games showed that design games may also be a process to drive the
collaboration in longer-term case studies. Differences between a short
term collaboration focused on in the first part of the dissertation and a
full-scale design research project with external partners are reflected in
Chapter 6.
The case studies also demonstrated different ways of considering user
insights in the early service design project. They completed the empirical
examples discussed in Chapters 1 to 3 by introducing new play- qualities
in indirect and direct user involvement. A narrative structure where
participants are creating scenarios in the storytelling mode and in roleplaying
was explored as a base for binding together different perspectives
from researchers, designers and users to interpret user insights and generate
design ideas. While games generally differ in form, amount of players,
playground, game pieces, and dominance between skills and chance
etc., design games differ in the amount and variety of play-qualities and
game material they employ. The main qualities of the three games are
summarised below (Table 5) and further discussed in the next chapters.
In this chapter so far I have given an overview of the unfolding of the
Extreme Design project with the three case studies. Next I will present
three design games in more detail to give a background for the following
chapter, where I will discuss some of their play-qualities in more detail.
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