The Value of Play
DESIGN OPPORTUNITY Kama Kaczmarczyk
“Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.” ‘On the Aesthetic Education of Man’Friedrich Shiller
CONTENTS.
1 2 3 4 5
ABSTRACT RESEARCH & QUESTIONS SIGNIFICANCE PROPOSED METHODS & APPROACH CONCLUSION
ABSTRACT. Researching play as the ultimate value, to create new discoveries, new memories, and new value experience. Following the notion stating that all human activities are play.
It all starts at home. This is where, from the earliest stages of our life, we start processing thoughts and exploring possibilities. We would sit around the table with a pile of colourful sheets of paper, glue, scissors and an open mind. We were making something. We were making by doing. And we were learning. Learning through playing. And we were not even conscious about that process. We were discovering the limits of our imagination, crossing the boundaries of the obvious and the immediate. Through observing small children it can be seen that free playing is a way that highly developed creatures discover the world for themselves. Playing is a natural, innate ability that serves personal development and evolution.
My interest in that topic derives from the observation of human interactions and activities. It is said that the highest form of human activity is play. Moreover, the highest form of all activity is play. It allows us to see. try, and feel what is possible. Today’s consumer cares about certain experiences which differ from the ones years ago. They can be listed as follows: physical health, mental and well-being, safety and security, connection to loved ones and more.
hearing making
touching feeling
designing
exploring trying
All human activities are play
creating
tasting
thinking
seeing doing
learning
The current stage of the value of play can be understood on two levels: tools being used for the play purpose (...) and drivers for the play interaction.
Respectively, at heart human beings have a set of unchanging fundamental needs and wants. Play can unlock many emotions and logistic approaches, such as: happiness, creativity, innovation, and learning. People look for ways to express themselves ,discover, and explore. For this reason there is a number of tools which have been emerging for centuries. The current stage of the value of play can be understood on two levels: tools being used for the play purpose (‘digital technologies’ vs. analogue means) and drivers for the play interaction (personal aspirations vs. social expectations). These two are constantly linked between each other. That is how the play network gets created.
Although playing and experimenting has a crucial value in our system and human development it has been losing its importance on the current, modern culture. It is being substituted by a series of new experiences which are explored on new levels of receiving, as playing itself is seen in a frame of being idle pastime with kids as a target group.
TOOLS
PLAY
social expectations
ANALOGUE MEANS
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES
Personal aspirations
DRIVERS
The assumptions of disruption of play activity can be found within the new emerging trends and culture drivers. The market does not clearly see and understand that the reasons to play vary when kids are compared with adults. The structure of a society can be divided into two groups: adults and kids, and the distinction between them is pretty strong. While kids enjoy the act of playing itself in its purest form, adults constantly seek for a reason to get engaged in a play activity. Kids play to have fun, explore, discover. For adults, the main driver to play is the reason. Whether it is the reward, goal, or selfsatisfaction. For kids, it is the very fuel to explore the world, develop their mind, relate to others, solve problems, acquire skills. Play is essential to development. Where is the ultimate value that will bridge both groups and offer new states of play-being? The opportunity lies in between them. That is the concept of K I D U LT S .
While kids enjoy the act of playing itself in its purest form, adults constantly seek for a reason to get engaged in a play activity.
KIDS
A D U LT S
K I D U LT S
ADULTS KIDS
REASON
PLAY REASON
PLAY
OPPORTUNITY
The value of play, whether achieved through the toys or experiences has to emerge the innovation and creativity within our humanness. The H U M A N N O V A T I O N needs to be the answer to the modern consumer living in a world being his playground. This concept of world-playground carries a priceless value of physical objects and non-tangible experiences. Researching future probes needs to be done on a variety of levels taking into consideration the diversity of the meaning of the word ‘play’.
World is a playground of emotions • services • events • people • tools • cognition/ the brain • spaces • behaviours • messages.
RESEARCH & QUESTIONS Future probes of the play value, activity, and its economy. The questions leading up to the potential direction.
The trends within the play culture are flooding the market mainly with new emerging technologies and electronics (robots, trackers, game rooms, video games, interactive spots, kinetic designs).
Google Doodle keywords: internet, game, computer, interaction, service, digital
The famous Google Doodle’s started back in 1998, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin added a stick figure behind the company’s logo. The idea was to let people know they were out of the office, attending the Burning Man festival. During the London 2012 Olympics it really stepped up its game by creating a series of interactive games to get people in the Olympic spirit. Games such as hurdles, appeared consequently each day on Google’s website. Google users directed their player, canoe, gymnast etc. to win. People around the world interact with Google website, being one of the most popular ones, on daily basis. Being exposed to Doodle game opportunity automatically entices to engage.
Daily Life Incentified keywords: individual, service, tool, business, brand, digital, innovation, life
Self-improvement is one of the deepest-rooted imperatives in human nature. What’s more, it’s a fundamental driver of behavior inside the modern consumer arena, where people strive to present an interesting – and aspirational – face to the world. Using the concept of human’s daily activities, routines, and restrictions as play, brands and businesses incentify change to improve people’s well-being. August 2014 saw Chinese online media brand Tencent team up with gaming hardware company Razer in a deal designed to incentivize healthy behavior. The collaboration allows fans of Tencent’s popular Timi Run Everyday game to purchase in-game rewards using exercise data recorded by Razer’s activity-tracking smartband.
Fitness Trackers keywords: tool, network, social/individuall, technology, psychological, quantiied
Fitness trackers in the form of an app or a wearable are becoming increasingly popular, as health-conscious consumers look to them for motivation to improve their lifestyles. They can track life 24 hours 7 days a week: activity, nutrition, sleep. They are not just about selfsatisfaction and self-tracking. People can even compete against each other to see who is more active. Twenty-three-year-old Alysssa Fountain wears a Fitbit all day, and so do her coworkers in Atlantic City. “It’s totally effective,” Fountain said of the social and motivational aspects. “We all compete to see who walks the most steps in a day, which means we wind up jogging in place when it’s slow.”
Game Rooms// Escape the Room keywords: digital, technology, social, space, brain
Escape rooms are scattered across the world. There are now close to 1,400 rooms spread across 277 cities. The game is simple. You’re locked in a room with 60 minutes to escape by solving a series of puzzles. All full of high-tech. The escape room is where the lines between real world and fiction are blurred, and where the seemingly mundane is brought vividly to life. Finding solutions, solving mystery, fully involved on a logic level players seamlessly interact with objects and the space. They play in a full meaning of the word. People craving those kind of extreme but challenging experiences use clever mechanics that get them thinking and acting in unexpected ways. This sense of unknown and being in a team is the biggest driver for this kind of play.
Robots keywords: psychology, tool, interaction, control
Controlling remotely makes us feel that we are in power. Since it’s been known forever that people want to feel powerful and in charge, having control over even something as simple as an object we can steer satisfies that need. The play act has a deep and strong subconscious driver and base. Being responsible while also interacting and taking responsibility over a piece of technology entertains and delights. Years ago it used to be a paper plane. Now it’s way more advanced.
Meditation & Mindfulness keywords: individual, event, space, network, cognition, emotion
In other words, mindful playing, mindful practice. Fully conscious act of playing with one’s state of being calm and achieving the inner peace , harmony, and balance. Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day. Meditation practice has been around for centuries. That only shows how long people have been engaging in this type of activity and consciousness interaction and playing with mind and body. Current technologies also seek opportunities within this theme offering apps and virtual experiences enhancing meditation.
Sport keywords: physical, analog, individual, social, shared, emotion, outcome
In the sporting world, there is a division between amaterus and professional athletes that gets bridged a little more with every passing year. No matter how much of a professional one is, he is still involved in this sport and gets a chance to experience the play factor. Different types of sport offer different experiences and interactions. People can now surf or climb and record their performance with a GoPro. The sporting arena is very broad. Yoga, surfing, running, basketball. Whatever the activity is, people become the players within. Doing sports gets people physically engaged. Often it also requires logic, strategy, and thinking. Interaction while doing sports happens on two levels: using a tool or interacting with team players. Both of those shape cognition and emotional relation.
Cooking keywords: interaction, system, creativity, experiment, shared, innovation
If people had never played with food, such invention as molecular gastronomy would never occur, Intriguing and complex formulas make the core of this branch of cooking. Coming up with a certain type of dough for short cake, kneading bread, all of those need some sort of trial and error activity. Getting that perfect temperature of oil, increasing the amount of chilli, people explore while playing with their senses. There is a lot of science behind heightened flavor, texture and presentation. The value in cooking lies in the fact that each person understands and experiences it in a different way whether it comes to smell, flavour, warmth, preparation etc. Right now, as technology gets better each day, food can now be 3D printed. Culinary professionals see it as a tool to unlock creativity.
Virtual Reality keywords: system, technology, space, network, augmented, brain
Being in different places, doing couple of things at once, managing everything within the shake of a hand: all these are exactly what virtual reality can do to our bodies. It’s an experience which redefines the state of being. Brands use VR to engage user in a play activity and bridge the gap between what’s real or not. To make commuting more entertaining, Pepsi set-up in a busy bus shelter in London a special display equipped with augmented reality technology. While watching through what first seemed to be a standard transparent glass panel, commuters could suddenly attend supernatural events (fall of a meteorite, wild animals and aliens). The most recent advancement which brings VR to every home is Microsoft’s HoloLens. A highly ambitious vision of future computing and entertainment.
Kinetic Design keywords: interaction, digital, space, event, network, innovation
Kinetic design is one of the most playful forms of design branch. As users can interact and change the outcome, the incentive lies in the psychological part of human interactions and feelings. German beer brand Beck’s partnered with Shine and Novalia agencies to create an interactive “music poster” that was set-up in several New Zealand cities as part of the country’s “Music Month”. To show its support to the local music scene, Beck’s asked a dozen of emerging bands and musicians to create special songs for the occasion. The poster is equipped with inbuilt speakers and uses conductive ink to let pedestrians chose and listen to a playlist. Users can also remix the songs by creating their own sound effects in real time.
Smartphones & Apps keywords: tool, social, virtual, service, technology, digital, creative, logic, interaction
One of the many tools available for playing in it’s pure but modern form is our phone and applications available to be downloaded. They trigger new possiblities and experiences while engaging users to have fun and interact with the technology. Dutch artist Daniel Disselkoen created “Cucalu“, a mobile app that lets users play with their visual environment by challenging them with simple and amusing missions: taking photos in the street of specific shapes, such as circles, squares and triangles.
‘All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with new things’ Stephanie Kwolek
(...) it is the experience level that is of the highest and most important value in the world-playground.
It is generally said that the start of school time is the end of free play. As much as it is true, it is not. From that point in our lives, we divide weeks into weekdays and weekends which consist of the work time and leisure. Playing is getting slowly reduced to the minimum as it becomes time-consuming and not a priority. The seriousness steps in and the play time is over. The standardisation and stigma of this concept somehow makes people stick to this conservative model.
At the same time, there is an emerging sets of attributes to alternate this notion. By 2020 there will be over 20 billion connected devices, most not PCs, smartphones, tablets. With the approach of all human interactions as play the potential instantly grows. Companies have been using it successfully for the past few years to surround consumers with new tools and kits offering new experiences. Therefore, it is the experience level that is of the highest and most important value in the world-playground. Those findings direct the possibility and further research opportunities. Research questions shape how it could be approached.
How can we maintain the interest in an activity through the lens of play? What are human’s subconscious drivers for play and how they can get translated into a tangible one-of-a-kind experience/system/product?
How can that benefit be enhanced, extended, and make a difference?
I am looking for a way to propose a new storydoing framework of play. The target group derived from the abstract proposal directs me towards researching the comparisons between adults and kids within the given method [kidults graph]. The questions should lead up to an outcome that will project and surpass the tangible and the immediate forms of play. Focusing on the experience the ultimate harmony and balance will be connecting them all and the simplest form possible.
The value of play, whether achieved through toys or experiences, has to emerge the innovation and creativity within our humanness.
SIGNIFICANCE.. Reasoning, justification, proof, personal gains
the experience
the dream
PLAY
the people
People being constantly involved in all sort of processes are put in a certain context. It triggers a certain behaviour and action as a result. The play spiral is just another way of showing how to represent all human interactions. It is highly significant to see how the reaction can get shaped and inner-dream can be reached to justify the research methodologies. It can open doors in different directions, all to achieve humannovation in its true meaning. Modern consumer , which I also identify with, living in a playground-world, adds up to my own gain. Seeing and interacting with the surrounding on different levels and understanding that it all has play value, as part of a research can benefit my final outcome. Future probes in most cases reflect only shallow insight into the real play value and experience drivers.
Focusing on the experience, the ultimate harmony and balance will be achieved once they all the needs and wants are connected in the simplest form possible. The core importance of it can be found in every activity and play-problem. Play engages more than just one aspect and driver. Interplay between cognition and emotions happens on three levels: visceral, behavioural, reflective. This framework shapes how to approach the research of shared experiences.
EMOTIONAL
SPIRITUAL
PHYSICAL
BEHAVIOURAL
SHARED EXPERIENCES SOCIAL
INTELLECTUAL
PLAYFUL
ASPIRATIONAL
(...) human senses carry the most important information for receiving the surrounding
My intent is to explore the psychological drivers to prompt people to interact and crave new experiences. Whether it would end up with a tool, shell, network, or platform, it expands the potential of exploration. Based on a fact that human senses carry the most important information for receiving the surrounding, that is the very first concept to take into consideration. The potential framework of the ‘arteries of play’ can be expanded to represent how each element influences the play moment, what its role is, and what it receives in terms of the value of play.
I want to dive into the themes of play. Since the range is already wide and growing, it is a crucial thing to understand each, where each derives from, what the outcome is, what kind of people are attracted to the specific one. Final direction decision needs to be based on a chosen theme and with a certain use of tools.. Since the value of play happens on such a broad spectrum and so many levels, the definition has to be made using a range of research methodologies applied.
MAKE
HEAR
SEE
ARTERIES OF PLAY
TOUCH
TRY
SMELL
PROPOSED METHODS & APPROACH Choosing frameworks for future use.
The research of the play on the basic experiece level is the core for the methodology and understanding that value. The play interaction happens everywhere, but it is highly divergent when observed in non-developed and developed countries. Interaction of playing has a different list of assets if it is conducted inside or outside. New tools on the market illustrate how advanced the technology became, from analogue wooden blocks to the use of digital tablets. The list goes on. We individually look for the assets that fit our personalities in the best way. Studying those choices and reasons for them helps maintain the psychological factor.
The playful wisdom can be extracted from philosophy, ancient ideals, intangible concepts of modern human, cognition, and more.
The significance of play can be seen, extracted, and studied any time, on a daily basis. Every minute of our life is dictated by play. With given location, surrounding, tool, environment, we create interactions and experiences that get into our internal system as ‘waves of play’. These get transferred to our memory and sometimes reapproach in the future. The playful wisdom can be extracted from philosophy, ancient ideals, intangible concepts of modern human, cognition, and more.
All design is purposeful. The questions are: What is the purpose? For whom? When? How and for how long? One perfect solution may not be possible. Since experience is the key to observation and understanding humannes, and play is one of the most significant means to reach out to people, it needs full knowledge and insight into it for achieving new and timeless play value. Based on the future probes, the experience level can be framed as a three level theory: digital, physical, human. Understanding that can move on with further research of the play tree (all assets of play activity and concept).
EXPERIENCE DIGITAL PHYSICAL THEMES
HUMAN
NETWORKS
LOCATION
RESEARCH
RULES
TOOLS
DRIVERS
TECHNOLOGY
ENVIRONMENT
Toys and technology are perfect partners. Physics and psychology can be foundation for amazing products. Responsive design and introverts can step up personal’s inhibition. Pairing up different concept and themes can give a very broad and new approach to new experiences. The new dimension of play can get created based off on research. We want to try new things, get a sense of the unknown, see more, understand, experience. We seek these in different places and new locations, we try new themes, we explore new games. All of these happen on the level of playing.
Treating every human as an elastic corpus my aim is to find questions and answers to enhance the state of being, desire, and freedom within the fundamental concepts of human forces, to challenge the perception and waves of play in everyday living experience.
CONCLUSION. Summary and future.
The reason for so many new emerging technologies, craft ideas, responsive designs comes from the inner crave for play. Everyday interactions and experiences can happen with a different outcome. A simple walk could turn into playing with words (“Madrid, te comería a versos”: an initiative that shows parts of famous poems written on the ground that people can read while crossing the street. It’s an opportunity to take a break from today’s hectic lifestyle and enjoy a few lines of poetry. )
Playing is being in a full humane meaning (...) open mind, open heart, and open will.
Play depends on imagination and creativity. Its artifact is human brain. Since there is so many people on this planet, there is as many values of play. It presents a new ecology of behaviour, responsibility, but also creativity, creation, sensibility/care. Play nature needs to be maintained. The key is to make the action of playing a useful tool: • to prepare for the future • to empathize, understand, fulfill • to open mind, heart, and open will.
Engagement in a play activity is a one-of-a-kind lab. It gives a certain assets of values: fun, engagement, maintain the interest, challenge, rewarding, non-frustrating, learning, giving. Playing is being in a full humane meaning. Within the identified concepts of kidults, humannovation and experience significance my research has a strong foundation and opportunity. Looking into different ways of approaching it through a range of methodologies can give a broad understanding of needs and wants of the target group.
EXPERIENCE
HUMANNOVATION
KIDULTS