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lacking. This section aims to fill this gap by introducing a novel approach for interac-
tive playground design that results in a tight integration of traditional children's play
and modern computer gaming, by systematically using the dimensions introduced
above for generating and improving interaction methods.
5.5.1
Concepts
The method starts with
Concept Generation
. This phase aims to arrive at an overall
'story concept' that will drive the design (Schell et al.
2008
, p. 49-53). First, a
number of candidate 'story concepts' are described. Out of these, one concept is
selected for further development, choosing on the basis of suitability for open-ended
play: the concept must be concrete enough to be able to derive possible interactions
from it, but it should not be so concrete as to block the children from evolving their
own play in the playground. For example, a story concept might centre on “make
a playground that is like a giant complex machine with moving parts”, or “make a
playground inhabited by many creatures”.
5.5.2
Interaction Methods
The story concept sketches the rough contours along which we can design the play-
ground's interactions. The second phase is to
develop single Interactions
that children
can have with the playground. For each of the 20
dimensions
determined earlier, a
single interaction possibility is designed. An interaction may be related to more than
one dimension, but at least we make sure that every dimension is related to at least
one interaction. For example, an interaction, related to dimension 16 (see
5.4.4
),
might be “If you step on a spinning gear in the machine, it will start making a noise”.
5.5.3
Systematic Variation on Interaction Methods
The third step in the design process is one of
Systematic Variation
. In this phase, every
interaction developed during the previous phase is analysed along all 20 dimensions.
Wherever possible, a new interaction is derived by adding the dimension if it was
not yet present in the interaction, or by inverting the role of the dimension, if it was.
Taking the example from
5.5.2
, an interaction resulting from this phase could be “If
you and at least one other player step on a spinning gear in the machine, it will start
making a noise”. While the interaction bears a clear link to the original, it has been
extended with a social component (dimension 3, see
5.4.4
).
By structurally creating varied instances of the initial set of interactions, this
phase adds yet more structure to the design and yields a vastly more extensive set
of interactions. The extended set of interactions will have a better coverage of the
various dimensions, and therefore of the four abstract goals.
