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

Creative interplay between current practices and future
opportunities
With Situated Make Tools it was possible to study people’s practices in
parallel with making a design intervention. New understanding was produced
in the assumed use context, and it was grounded to those people’s
interpretation design concepts were targeted to. Being in a possible use
context maintained the link between the current practises and the envisioned
situations, as Buur and Søndergaard (2000) have also claimed.
When observing with eyes open for change instead of being eyes open for
observing, the context evoked new ideas and opportunities for the researchers
as well (see more Vaajakallio & Mattelmäki 2007). The stance
taken by the researchers at the study was to listen first what the ageing
workers proposed and then address his/her own suggestions evoked by
the observations, to test ideas immediately with the workers. Facilitators’
roles are discussed more thoroughly in the next chapters.
What can be considered as a possible shortcoming of the approach is
the exceptionally dynamic and unpredictable setting that is difficult to
control: the enacted scenarios took place in various locations, outdoors
and indoors, inside one building or between many buildings. Another
possible shortcoming is the resources required since only one user participated
at a time; hence there were as many gatherings as there were
involved users. The improvisational character of the Situated Make Tools
raises a question about how well these types of sessions can be planned
beforehand without losing the sensitivity towards arousing design opportunities
that at least partly result from being continuously alert.
2
Design materials as tools in ideation
As stated by Ehn and Kyng (1991), even simplest mock-ups can create
hands-on-experiences and, besides designers’ idea generation, support users’
thinking as well. Their unfinished nature can be seen as an advantage
since it distinguishes them from real objects; people see them as ideation
tools instead of considering them as representations of the final design
(ibid.). We noticed that the Make Tools were abstract enough to be understood
as a design language but concrete enough for the workers to offer
insights on mobile technology. For instance, a woman from the cleaning
maintenance staff reflected upon a recent phone call from an unsatisfied
client while envisioning properties for a dream device (Vaajakallio & Mattelmäki
2007). Although having the open-character Make Tools guided
discussion and thinking; they were created based on early assumptions of
alternative design opportunities, consequently limiting the solution space
as well. For example, one of the maintenance men came up with an idea of a
smart vest, but he couldn’t demonstrate his vision with the provided design
material. The form of a mock-up he was able to build likely influenced his
idea on how to use the device, as we discussed in (Ylirisku et al. 2007).
3
24