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

games often leads to confusion about what is actually meant by it. Whereas
previous literature gives various practical examples of applying a game
metaphor (meaning calling what they do as ‘a game’ or ‘a design game’)
in design, there are a lack of studies that address the following questions:
Why are these same or at least very similar methods sometimes called design
games and sometimes, for instance, drama inspired methods, scenarios
or just co-design workshops? What are the underlying play-qualities embedded
in the activities labelled as design games?
This dissertation argues that in order to productively apply design
games, it is important to understand their core identity by looking at the
roots of the play atmosphere along with the play-qualities essential to it.
This is done by studying games, play and performance separately and in
connection with the application context, co-design. The three main perspectives
adopted in this search are design collaboration, facilitating creative
interplay between current practices and future opportunities, and
design materials as tools in ideation. In doing so, this dissertation builds
a Play framework that presents the elements and core qualities of design
games in an extensive but compact way.
The Play framework is developed by analysing several short-term
empirical cases and a two-year design research project on co-design in
relation to the existing literature on games, play and performance. The
application domain illustrates the widening scope of design, including
the recently much debated field of service design, through three cases
ranging from recognizing novel partnership possibilities, understanding
the evolving user needs during the long life span of bank services, and
identifying novel service opportunities within social media.
The research evolves by displaying the background, empathic design
and co-design via five empirical cases and related literature in the first
two chapters. Following that, chapter three addresses the question of what
makes a design game, which is further explored in chapters four and five in
connection with a service design research project. In addition, chapter five
looks at the qualities of design games from the design game designers’ point
of view, emphasising designing creative collaboration as a design process in
itself. The final Play framework is summarised and discussed in chapter six
by looking at design games as a tool, as a mindset and as a structure.
The contribution of this dissertation is three-fold: First, the Play
framework offers theoretical and practical framework that helps to discuss,
design, conduct and analyse co-design gatherings arranged through
design games. Second, the empirical material provides examples of utilising
a set of design games that can be applied and further developed in
diverse design research projects. Third, the way creative collaboration is
organised through design games from the beginning formulates a specific
design games driven approach for carrying out creative collaboration
throughout multidisciplinary design research projects.
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