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

a radio play by taking the characters’ point of view. The aim of acting out is
to sum up the storyline and allow new insights. However, performing the scenario
is a voluntary extra act to open up further perspectives, and all groups
did not take that step. Below the game is illustrated with an example from the
third case study that focused on social media.
Introducing
the
title
One of the groups is facilitated by Sofia, a sociology student who is
working as a research assistant in the project. Besides her there is Natalie,
a service designer from Palmu Inc., as the creative secretary, and
four players, two men and two women, representing users with different
ages, experiences and skills in regard to social media. Here they
are referred to as users 1, 2, 3 and 4. They sit around a table, on top of
which there is a paper with a drawn timeline, post-it notes, and piles
of stickers that illustrate a variety of social media. Sofia introduces the
title, “good humoured surprise”, for the story and then encourages the
participants to “start thinking what the title could mean; who might
surprise whom?”
Crafting
the
storyline
They begin to propose content for the story, and after 15 minutes they
have the overall storyline ready summed up by the facilitator: “Ok,
we have 55 year-old Anneli, an account manager, whose relationship
status in Facebook goes wrong; she accidentally announces being engaged
even though she is not.” When she asks the players to think the
story further, User 1 proposes that Anneli “receives a great number of
messages to her inbox and to her wall at Facebook, but she doesn’t
really realize that her relationship status is the cause behind them”.
User 3 suggests that “... wedding organizer service gives the first offer”
and User 4 continues that Anneli receives a gift from her colleagues
at work. This proposition triggers a real life example from User 1 about
celebrations at work. These and many more incidents, accompanied by
laughter, are added to the storyline.
After a while the storyline has evolved so that Anneli gets married
(caused by a chain of incidents in regard to Facebook status) with a
colleague, who helps her with the status update. User 1 finally closes
the story: “The story will end so that they have kept this relationship
secret, and then it becomes as a surprise when they get engaged for
real, and that pops up in the status again.” User 3: “And that time everyone
teases her that can’t you still use the Facebook properly.” […]
User 4: “But then she can publish a photo about the engagement ring
to confirm that this time it’s true.”
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