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

presented earlier, we may analyse the way performance comes together
as a combination of these different participants’ input. This may increase
understanding of the expectations put on involving users, interest groups,
a development team and researchers in the early design stages. I will first
discuss it in general terms and then through empirical examples from the
Extreme Design project.
Since a design games driven approach puts emphasis on co-constructing
future possibilities, it is not a process where researchers gather information,
interpret it and then communicate the results. Instead, it builds
on a knowledge creation process where several people’s input is vital. We
can study it through the two performance process models introduced at
the end of the last chapter (page 171) by starting with the full performance
process and then focusing on a co-design gathering.
From the knowledge creation point of view, proto-performance consists
of three sub phases. The first phase concentrates on producing general
knowledge about participant’s attitudes, skills and expectations as
they relate to the project: it is about crafting a common vision for the
coming project. The second phase takes some questions addressed in the
first phase under further study and transforms them into activities/actions.
The knowledge that is produced represents fragmented pieces illustrating
people’s daily lives by focusing on a particular but ambiguous
theme, such as living in senior houses. The information includes rather
separate statements and pictures about current situations, and does not
yet build a consistent image of design opportunities or alternative futures.
The third phase has to do with clarifying and simplifying information by
dissecting data and creating ways to approach the rest of the material. It
is about designing frames for co-constructing new knowledge in the next
phase, which is the actual performance: the co-design gathering.
During the performance, new knowledge starts to take the shape of design
concepts – more detailed and consistent stories from the present and
future. However, it is still rather conceptual, since it has not been evaluated
or tested against implementation demands. Therefore, in the aftermath, cocreated
knowledge is reflected towards its use context, for example developing
new service models for banks or building new B2B partnerships. After
this, the amount of information can be worked into action points, design
drivers and a detailed design brief.
Although we can think of these phases separately, they share four actions,
which may be explicit or implicit: gathering new information, mixing up
information from different sources, contextualising (interpreting) information
and sharing information. These actions all co-exist in the abovementioned
phases of the performance process, not in chronological order
but as an entangled web. Since in a design games driven approach the
co-design culminates in co-design gatherings, the four activities are also
more evident in those actions (Figure 55).
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