IA Summit 2009 – Donna Spencer – Design Games

What are design games?
they are always something that will provide an outcome that can be used in a project

why design games?
because it’s much more fun to have fun at work
by playing a game, we use different parts of our brain. we can stimulate creativity
if you tweak your process to make it more fun you will get much better outcomes

games to play with users

• design the home page — very good for focus groups – just ask people to design a home page that will be perfect for them. it doesn’t have to “look like a home page” (logos, nav bars, etc.) just think about the things that are important and get those down. this will tell you a lot – what is most important to people
• divide the dollar – give the group a set of features (or have them brainstorm a set of features) and then have them divide the money across the features – and justify their decisions.  what if they just divide it equally??
• metadata games — use to illustrate that people call the same thing the very different thing. [ex. what do you call x (image) cozy -- terminology is so damn important... we need to know the terms that people use. ]
• Freelisting — good for terminology – tell me as many of x as you can think of. (e.g. tell me as many dogs you can think of). the ones that she says first are the ones that have meaning for her, dogs they have owned, do own, etc. can get an idea of her mental model. list varieties of beer. very good way to identify cognitive patterns… 
• card sorting — write content ideas on index cards and ask users to sort them in ways that make sense to them. this is a very common technique, but we can make this more “game-like” – prizes, time contstraint, get fun with the content. 

games for design teams

• idea cards — you have some sort of problem that you are working on (design challenge), brainstorming, draw three cards from the deck and come up with a solution that uses those concepts (ex. audience, integrity, travel, difficult, risk, images, personality, impersonal, etc.)
• reversal – rather than tackling the problem head on, reverse the problem and solve that. [ex. going through airport security is awful. how could it be made worse?]

planning design games 

• you definitely have to want an outcome, so you must plan to get that. 
• rules/constraints have to be defined
• have to figure out a way to make sure that everyone is involved. 
• prizes? criteria? how will success be measured – how to communicate that without corrupting the experience
• instructions – make them clear to avoid stress for the players. [ex. identify the things you want to see on the home page, discuss which are most important and why, sketch a home page that represents those ideas this can be pictoral or done in words (show examples to make people realize there is more than one way to do it).] 

More games (suggested by audience):

• design the box - use with clients, product team, lots of folks – we all know how the product works. we all know how boxes work. if your product was a box, design the box. if the agency was a product, design it’s box. now sell that product to the rest of the team.  if i was a product, how would i sell myself?
• brain writing. use sticky notes. every time you have an idea, stick it up to the wall. then sort it. 
• different hats - pretend you are a person from a brand designing your site? (?)
• creativity cards – oblique strategies. posting them on twitter as oblique chirps. 

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