Playgroup | Creativity through play

When designing a playful experience there are many factors to consider. I have in previous posts briefly covered behaviour patterns, the need for a genuine approach and the potential in the unconnected social network of your brand. 

The flow of play

Another factor you should consider are the different mental states that a playful experience takes the users through. Scott Eberle's six-step process of play (see above) is a good framework to have in mind when you map out a playful experience. It is not an exact user flow, but it does encapsulate the important mental states that the user goes through. 

My advice is that you tailor the experience to the users different play personalities. This will ensure that you have a fully absorbed user, who is experiencing the euphoria and creativity of being engaged in a playful activity tailored to their specific mood and personality traits.

Quick tip

Let's say you are designing an online service for a youth market. You can then leverage the inherent strength of social media technologies to enable playful behaviour that suits the different play personalities. We have defined these enablers as follow:

• Ownership
• Sharing
• Personalisation
• Creation
• Participation
• Socialising
• Competing

Of course none of these will really work unless the users feels like these are genuine and actually give them the freedom to fully discover, connect & interact with the service and each other without too much governance. The clue is that if you have an honest and genuine approach you can trust your users and let go.

Moderation is a difficult topic and we had several questions at our Play talk regarding this. We believe that with the right approach it can be limited and does not have to become a big burden on your project team. 

How?

Send us an e-mail or give us a call. We are more than happy to discuss your organisations needs and challenges.

Posted by Johan on 04 Oct 09, at 9:51 pm

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