Miriam Zisook Personal Health Informatics (PHI) zisook.m@husky.neu

1. Designing Exploratory Design Games: A Framework for Participation in Participatory Design?Eva Brandt Miriam ZisookPersonal Health Informatics (PHI) zisook.m@husky.neu.edu

2. Take away • Participatory design involves end users as members of the design team • Game play can be a useful way of framing participation by users and designers

3. Design is a Social Process • Communication, negotiation, and compromise are important parts of the process

4. If design isn’t participatory… • Users have to be able to give a complete account of what they need and how they work when asked on the spot • This is really unlikely, but often serves as the underlying assumption in design research

5. Exploratory Design Games • Concept Design • Exchange Perspective • Negotiation and Work Flow Oriented • Scenario Oriented

6. Concept Design Games • Organize and structure the team • Frame cooperation • Set goals and agendas • Examples: Silent Game and Delta Game

7. Exchange Perspectives Games • Combining elements that normally do not fit together • Examples: Exquisite corps, Nordvest Game

8. Negotiation and Work-Flow • Understanding Existing Work Practice • Example: Organizational kit game

9. Scenario Oriented Game • Presents a use situation that is deliberately incomplete • “The Magic If” • Enact/role play a scenario using props/artifacts • Example: Dynabook scenario game

10. Games Help Understand Users • Get a common understanding of the user through participatory design game • Example game: User Game, Personas

11. Brainstorming Games • Future Workshops • Critique Phase • Fantasy Phase • Implementation Phase • Landscape Game • Create context for personas

12. Why Use Games? • Flexible • Lots of ways to use them

13. Why Use Games? • Establish common understanding and constraints • Ingredients and structure for establishing common ground

14. Why Use Games? • Supports exploration and collaboration • Levels the playing field • Fun, informal and engaging

15. Critique + • Great collection of ideas for games • Strong case for how they can help a design team and users gel into a cohesive team

16. Critique ∆ • Not enough concrete examples of how these games could lead to more tangible positive outcomes in the design process

17. Extending the Idea • Follow up with examples of games within the broader design process • How those games led to design characteristics and decisions

18. Let’s play Exquisite Corps • Paper has 4 sections • One teammate draws at a time for 1 minute • Marks connect edge of your section to next person’s

19. Let’s play Exquisite Corps • Goal: Draw your target user • Head: What do they think about? • Torso and arms: What do they do? • Legs: What are their goals, where are they trying to go? • Feet: What/who supports and helps them?

20. Takeaways from the game? • Did you think about anything new about your user? • Were you surprised by any of your teammate’s ideas?

21. Using Games in the future • Do any of the games in the paper seem useful for your projects? • Have you thought about including the end user in your project? Will you now?