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

6.1.1
Design
games
as
a
tool
As Keinonen (2009) has proposed, design methods may be considered as
an instrument, a competence or an agenda, all serving different purposes
when it comes to applying them and all requiring different criteria for
evaluating them. The examples I have given indicated that design games
are a mixture of them. Sometimes the underlying goal is empowering users,
thus emphasising an agenda, whereas most often they are described
through their instrumental qualities, such as repetitiveness or the competence
required for the facilitation of design games. In the Play framework,
I present three ways in which design games can be seen as tools: organising
dialogue, supporting empathic understanding and gaining several
contributions. These are not mutually exclusive, but, rather, complement
one another, although what is most central in a specific design game varies.
When I propose that design games can be seen as tools, I do not mean
that they are instrumental in terms of repetitive use, but, instead, that
they are designed in a specific way to work as a tool for facing contextual
design needs.
When considering design games as tools applicable for future projects,
we should understand especially the relationship between the instrumental
aspects of them and the level of competence that is required to
confidently run a design games driven co-design project or one-off gathering.
What is dominant varies from game to game or rather from aim to
aim. By confident, I mean the image that the researcher presents to indicate
to the participants that the situation is under control and, although
it is always unsure what the exact outcomes are, gives the impression
that co-design evidently produces relevant material for the design task
at hand. This is part of the motivation for the participants to be involved
and thereby needs to be clearly indicated.
Competence is something that only grows when exercised over time.
However, the Play framework aims at supporting the process of becoming
a skilled design game designer and facilitator of creative collaboration
by illustrating how the interplay between design games as tools,
mindset and structure can make a design game. It explains the core of
design games and their multifaceted nature succinctly enough to ease
the need to explain the approach to various audiences – to non-experts
as well as to more knowledgeable researchers. It provides a vocabulary
and lens for studying co-design gatherings and different types of design
games, thus serving as a sort of tool itself.
One question related to innovative methods (Hanington 2003) involves
how much they can be instrumentalised or controlled so that they
do not lose their capacity for renewal, which is fundamental in avoiding
turning a method into “a stagnant routine”, and which, according to Mattelmäki
(2006, pp 101–102), is often regarded as the opposite of creativity.
Consequently, when developing the Play framework, I have tried to avoid
straightforward guidelines to leave room for creative interpretations,
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