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

“different types of events with collaborative inquiry and design” (ibid., p
219). As described by Brandt (ibid., p 220), in that process there are three
types of co-design events: those with one or more potential users, those
involving interest groups from other divisions, and those that are held
within the design team.
The last two participation types describe what the term stakeholders
often denote in co-design. Whereas in Brandt’s (2001) case stakeholders
came largely, but not only, from within the organisation that designs and
manufactures the products, in many other cases, especially in design research,
the design team often includes people from an university and from
the partnering companies as illustrated in, for example, (Johansson 2005;
Mattelmäki 2006; Westerlund 2009). In service design, the group of stakeholders
may even be wider (Cottam & Leadbeater 2004).
When considering co-design as a continuum in a design process, continuity
between events becomes one of the central issues to consider. Brandt
(2001, pp 226–227) suggests that the progress in this respect should be
monitored, while ensuring that essential insights are maintained through
the project, for instance by establishing a constant dialogue with the
important interest groups, such as users. I will return to this wider perspective
on co-design in the following chapters, but next I will discuss
co-design gatherings in relation drama workshops’ governing rules, as
presented by Johnston (1998/2005). The aim is to see whether those rules
can be adapted for co-design and what they could mean for understanding
and organising it.
Six polarities of drama workshops
Johnston (1998/2005, pp 24–52) suggests six polarities which may help to
understand the governing rules of drama workshops, i.e. the relationship
between: 1) the fixed and the free, 2) surface and depth, 3) the centre and the
edge, 4) the individual and the collective, 5) the performer and the audience,
and 6) the simple and the complex. I will next describe them in more detail
to illustrate what they could mean in co-design. Detailed examples about
applying fixed elements as boundaries for co-design are given in Chapters
4 and 5, whereas a more general description is given below.
The fixed elements provide frames for action, within which people
can enjoy freedom because they feel safer – and thus can take more risks.
“It is characteristic of the relationship between freedom and structure that
an increase of rules does not necessarily give you less freedom (ibid., p 25).”
Fixed elements may be, for example, a theme (“betrayal”), a restriction
(“no speech”), or an objective (“to win a favour”). (Johnston1998/2005)
In the five co-design cases, the fixed elements came from a variety of
props constructed according to insights gained from field studies. Besides
providing structures, they also maintain the link between imagined and
real; they introduce certain situations, themes or roles to be explored for
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