Designerly influence on politics and the press: Changing a deadlocked relationship
In recent years, political communication and political television debates have become farcical because of the professionalization of political communication. This has resulted in a deadlock between politicians, journalists and citizens, who appear to have fundamentally different goals. Consequently, television debates have become predictable, less focused on political argument, and far removed from their consequences in the daily lives of citizens. Drawing on empirical data from a workshop attended by a diverse set of stakeholders - journalists, producers, politicians, and media students - this paper presents the initial findings on how co-design and design games can take part directly in the ‘heat’ of democracy and make room for mutual understanding. In addition, the paper argues for new perspectives on design game research by demonstrating how prioritization, selection, and ‘reversal of perspectives’ can be incorporated into design games.
Business Model Design Games: Rules and Procedures to Challenge Assumptions and Elicit Surprises
Previously well-established companies are currently struggling to secure profits, mainly due to the pressure from new communication technology-based business models. Because of this, the business model research field has flourished in recent years, but most of the applied approaches still rely on linear, rational conceptions and causal reasoning. Through three games and three business cases, it is argued that experimental game-like innovation activities can lead the way into another approach to business model development, called ‘business model design games’. This paper illustrates how the application of game rules and procedures can challenge business assumptions and evoke surprises that lead to novel business model insights.
Formatting design dialogues – games and participation
This article discusses design games as a particular genre for formatting design dialogues. In the first part of the article we review the participatory design literature for game-oriented framings of co-design. We look at what constitutes game and play, we discuss other authors' use of games in collaborative settings, and finally we examine the board game as a particularly interesting game format. In the second part of the article we present and discuss two board games: the User Game and the Landscape Game. We show how these games respond to particular challenges, and how they have interesting characteristics in being both ‘as-if’ worlds to explore and shared representations of what the players accomplish. In the last section of the article we discuss how new games may be designed and played and what makes a good design game.