GameFraming

Editor's Notes

• #2: - I’m excited about this course because it gives you a framework to redesign everything, from life to work to learning. - I think GameFraming may change the way we learn throughout our lives, and give us something vastly more powerful in terms of building real skills and creativity.
• #3: - Why would this be important? When looking at the work of the innovators and teachers of interaction and design, we benefit from lots of valuable insights, principles and practices developed over the years. And these have helped us to get to the point where we are now as an industry. - Some companies are able to create products that are fun, enjoyable, engaging and even addictive. What do they do to succeed consistently?- What did the original innovators do?- What we will uncover today, is a way that you can systematically develop new products, processes, ideas, and practices for your work, and your life. - This new approach combines years of research by many distinguished scholars from psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, storytelling, education, economics, and video game design. - Gameframing is a new way to reframe everything that we do, break the rules, re-design our work and life, keep pushing our edge, create more, earn more, and have more fun.
• #4: What is the importance of play? - Why does a polar bear, without food for the previous 4 months, spend time to play with a dog?- Play is pervasive in the animal kingdom (show video of animals playing)
• #5: - One of the hallmarks of play is that it seems purposeless. however, the pervasiveness of play argues that it must have a purpose- What cats learn in play-fighting is not how to hunt... even cats that don't play-fight can hunt. What cats learn is to socialize. Learn emotional intelligence.- A penalty-free rehearsal of normal give and take necessary in social groups
• #6: - Animals that play a lot learn how to navigate their world and adapt to it- In play, we try out things that don't threaten our physical or emotional well-being- Play-deficit has been shown in the laboratory to be much like the well-documented sleep-deficit- Neoteny is an adaptation to retain the playfulness of youth. Labradors exhibit play behavior throughout their life. Wolves, however, grow into adults with stricter roles in the hierarchy, and survive in the wild better. But in the environment of humans, labradors are better adapted.- Neoteny has drawbacks. But it has fostered civilizations, art, music.- Studies show that play throughout life, prolongs life. People continue to learn and explore, people are less prone to dementia, neurological problems, heart disease and other things that have nothing to do with the brain.- If we stop playing, grow out of play, our behavior becomes fixed, we are not interested in new and different things- When we stop playing, we stop developing, laws of entropy take over, we fall apart.
• #7: - Humans have many advantages over animals, from opposable thumbs to a neo-cortex. - The neo-cortex gives us the unique ability to formulate highly complex communication, and in particular stories - These stories, ones that capture our imagination, inspire and guide us, give our lives purpose and direction, follow a regular pattern
• #8: - This same pattern repeats throughout all the movies we watch - The stories we tell, the books we read - From time immemorial to today, there is an archetypal hero we all subconsciously strive to be...
• #9: - The Hero’s Journey takes the hero of the story on an adventure of transformation - Where challenges, tests await - This journey through a new world of discovery, and back... - Why I bring this up is we live this journey in our lives - We also seek this experience in our daily life... - And if we design this into the games we create... we tap into a deep emotional river that can carry people along...
• #10: - Here is the brief story of a man that touched the lives of all his students, by playing games that showed them their greatness... - He designed games, and play, that transformed their lives... - He designed an environment, that allowed each child to see their own greatness... - Through stories... - These children then carried their touch of greatness throughout their lives... - He tapped into the Hero's Journey....
• #11: The fundamental structure of games is comprised of four parts - The Point of the Game - The Existential Rules - The Rules of Action - The Rules of Strategy
• #12: - To create a new game, you can often start from an existing game that works somewhat well, but has some limitations - Perhaps some aspect of the game isn’t to your liking... in the case of Chess, perhaps it takes too long to play... so you add some rules to speed up the game... creating Speed Chess - Perhaps the space on the board is too limiting, in your opinion, you want more variation... so you invent a new board and rules of action - By playing with the new game, you get a sense of how the game works... how playable it is... - We've talked about storyline... and... - We’ll talk about playability in a moment... - Remember to experiment with the new game, and change it again based on your observations...
• #13: - What’s the point of inventing a new game? - Designing something better!!!... - For one, game designs can incorporate aspects of human nature and encourage behavior that enhances our lives... - In Africa, farmers are encouraged to use fertilizer to increase their crop yields... fields there produce one tenth what their U.S. counterparts do... - In their first year of use, fertilizer can double crop yields and farmer income... substantially improving people's quality of life...
• #14: - Unfortunately, farmers typically delay buying their fertilizer until right before the next planting season... - Since 90% of the farmers don’t plan well enough in advance, to save enough for fertilizer, they can’t afford the fertilizer when the planting season begins... - Economists wanted to see if something would work better... - So they created a bunch of games, and played them with the farmers, to see what game design worked the best... - In the end, the best game design was to offer the farmers free shipping if they paid for their fertilizer right after their harvest... when the farmers had a moment of resolution... - The net desired result was the doubling of crop yields and farmer income...
• #15: -Alterations to a game design can have impressive results... -The timed sale, putting time pressure on a customer, has been proven to work successfully... -Gilt uses this to sell their luxury items... adding a sense of excitement, limited availability, and desirability to their “flash sales”... -All aspects of the Gilt “game design” have led to their impressive growth, in contrast to other luxury purveyors who have been around longer...
• #16: -Game design isn’t limited to recreational activities... -Even though a sense of play intentionally has a purposelessness, a sense of freedom from feeling like the activity is without consequence, these elements can be added to some very productive endeavors... -After all, if your games can harness some of the 100 billion hours people here in the U.S. spend watching TV, what Clay Shirky calls the “Cognitive Heat Sink”, you can give people outlets for their creativity, and build the next Wikipedia -A couple more crowdsourced productivity applications include the Facebook and Twitter translators...
• #17: -So how in the design world have we built “rules” that limit our options... -Some of these “rules” are actually “beliefs” that we take as "reality"... -We have the power to change them.... -Some design “rules” are listed here... and while initially they may seem powerful, they also limit our options and what design process we follow...
• #18: -Just as simply as we can choose a different set of rules for the game of chess, we can deconstruct our beliefs about how things need to be done, and invent new ones... -We can do this for our work, our relationships, with life... -Here are a few beliefs, that if we change them, we can change the rules of the games we play... -We can redesign how we view life, and play again... -Who doesn’t want more fun and freedom in life?...
• #19: - Since we’re designers here, I thought it would be fun to illustrate a few UX examples... - Here are several products that resulted from deconstructing and redesigning several games... leading to several industry innovations... - Usability research, it was held, needed to be conducted in person, face-to-face...
• #20: - The designer of Morae didn't believe that research had to be conducted in person, and when screen recording and Web cam became possible, he created the product we use today... - Yet, even then, beliefs about how research had to be conducted still affected it’s design... specifically that all usability research needed to be moderated to be useful...
• #21: -When I realized that research could be conducted remotely, and use automation to test a site with hundreds of participants simultaneously, combining market research and usability research, I created a company called NetRaker to change the game yet again... -In hindsight, I was still limited by beliefs... this time, that usability research needed to be formal and detailed...
• #22: -Once another crew of game changers realized they could use guerrilla research methods online, doing something similar to what we did at NetRaker, but making it even simpler, they could put quick and cheap research in the hands of every product team... This is UserTesting.com -So, as you can see, these three games from similar a “need” - Different background - Different observations - Different design -People innovated when they questioned beliefs and changed the game...
• #23: -In the design domain I took another game, and reconsidered the “beliefs”, the “rules”, that people took to be a given, and designed a new game... -For each belief or rule, I created a new rule... -And from this, invented a new design methodology that made experimental research and design possible...
• #24: - These rules changed and adapted based on real life experience - Along with our client Agilent, we changed the rules of design to enable experimental research and design in the Agilent organization... - We changed the game - We came up with a more streamlined and efficient way to manage a project - We designed a new game that enabled us to experimentally design new interfaces during the formative stages of a project - This led to big improvements in the site - It also served to dissolve internal disputes about what design was the best
• #25: - So, these are just a couple examples of how changing the games we play can help us innovate, evolve, play, and enjoy more... - If you start looking at your work, and life, and look at the beliefs you hold to be “true” and “fixed”, you will discover some of them are beliefs that can be redesigned
• #26: - Remember these game elements, and to experiment with your game designs, and you can start injecting more challenge and fun into everything you do...
• #27: - This has been a short primer in GameFraming... I have given you something you can use as you look at your work, and life... - I leave you with this... - What makes things fun is the challenge, those things that are “not too hard” frustrating, and “not too easy” boring... - Think of the tests and challenges in the Hero's Journey... - Give your games “levels” to achieve, that keep pushing your edge... - And design in “feedback” rewards of pleasure, and penalties of pain, simple measures of success, and encourage celebration with your community... - Keep the game “you”, by customizing it to your style, making it your own... - And keep building excitement with a high velocity of rewards...
• #28: - For more on GameFraming, I encourage you to contact me, and join my list of Beta Testers... - Thank you for being a wonderful audience!!!...