The document summarizes Emma Creighton's explorative design for free play. It discusses moving away from structured play toward more free, physical, social play inspired by today's technology. The design involved research, a focus, prototyping a "jogo design" to encourage exploratory, visual, object, sound and game based play. The document lists several references for further reading on play and recommends contacting the author or visiting online profiles for more information.
16. some reading… Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens; a study of the play element in culture The Beacon Press, Boston, 1955 Brown, S. Play, How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul Penguin Group Inc., 2009 Caillois, R. Man, Play and Games The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961 Sutton-Smith, B., The Ambiguity of Play Harvard University Press, 2001 Koster, R. A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Paraglyph Press, Arizona, 2005 Froebel, F. The Education of Man New York: Sentry Press, 1974 Wenner, M. The Serious Need for Play. Scientific American Mind, January 28, 2009 Mandryk, R. L. and Inkpen, K. M. Supporting Free Play in Ubiquitous Computer Games, in Workshop on Ubiquitous Gaming UbiComp2001 (Atlanta, Georgia, USA, October 2001) Ginsburg, K R., The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, in American Academy of Pediatrics, Springer Netherlands, 2006 Baptiste, N., Adults need to play, too, in Early Childhood Education Journal 23(1) September, 33-35, 1995 Ishii, H. Tangible bits: beyond pixels, in Proceedings of the 2nd international Conference on Tangible and Embedded interaction (Bonn, Germany, February, 2008) Hornecker, E. and Buur, J. Getting a grip on tangible interaction: a framework on physical space and social interaction, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April, 2006) Scientific American (2009) The Serious Need For Play [online] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play [accessed 10th March 2009]
17. Thanks for your time! for more… w: www.emmacreighton.com e: hello@emmacreighton.com youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eePG6nhiZ9M vimeo: http://vimeo.com/12170754
Notas del editor
Who I amWhat I’m here to presentWhat I’m going to talk about todayBackground – where the idea started from, my motivation and interestDesign – the process, the designPrototype – the build, the technologyPlay – evaluation, observation at DAWNDiscussion – what all this showsFuture Work – what next
My personal motivation – decline, children missing out on what we had as children, adults needing a break from the stress and strain of everyday lifeNeed for play – for children and for adults – why its important for bothThe benefits of free open-ended playHuizinga, Stuart Brown, The Play Ethic, Lego Serious PlayPlays importance for childrenFor healthy child development – social skills, dexterityHuizingaIn his book, ‘Homo Ludens’ or ‘Man the Player’, he discusses play, presenting a study of the play element of culture, describing man the player and the importance of the “eternal play-element” of culture. Huizinga describes play as a function of the living that “is not susceptible ofexact definition either logically, biologically or aesthetically”. Play presents itself to us as “an interlude in our daily lives” and can be characterised as relaxation that is regularly recurring and that becomes an integral part of life. Play enhances life and can be seen as a necessity both for man as an individual, as a “life function” and for society because of its significance and its spiritual and social association. In his writing, Huizinga attempts to redefine and elevate the significance of play“The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.”Brian Sutton-Smith“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”George Bernard Shaw“Of all animals, humans are the biggest players of all”Stuart Brown, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, clinical researcher, and the founder of the National Institute for Play.“We are designed by nature and evolution to continue to play throughout life. Life-long play is central to our continued well-being, adaptation, and social cohesiveness.”Stuart Brown
What am I trying to do in my workMove the focus of play away from direct interaction with technology with forms of computer desktop and video gaming systems
Back to more free, tangible, physical playThe kind of play we used to do when we were youngerThe kind of play that is crucial for healthy child development
My personal motivation – decline, children missing out on what we had as children, adults needing a break from the stress and strain of everyday lifeNeed for play – for children and for adults – why its important for bothThe benefits of free open-ended playHuizinga, Stuart Brown, The Play Ethic, Lego Serious Play
My personal motivation – decline, children missing out on what we had as children, adults needing a break from the stress and strain of everyday lifeNeed for play – for children and for adults – why its important for bothThe benefits of free open-ended playHuizinga, Stuart Brown, The Play Ethic, Lego Serious Play
Background – where the idea started from, my motivation and interestDesign – the process, the designPrototype – the build, the technologyPlay – evaluation, observation at DAWNDiscussion – what all this showsFuture Work – what next
Need for play – for children and for adults – why its important for bothThe benefits of free open-ended playHuizinga, Stuart Brown, The Play Ethic, Lego Serious PlayA user centered approach places a focus on the user – their needs, abilities, their feedback – taking them into account at every step of the way, from research right through to design and prototyping and evaluationDuring development of jogo an emphasis was placed on potential users and the task of free play, involving them in different ways Different methods of data gathering were used to cover the target groups of the project - it was necessary to gather an understanding of the different ages, what is important to them, what motivates them in play, identifying different requirements for the designResearch - literature - interviews -créche & montessori visit - observation - focus groups (online, informal & one formal planned) - cork trip to wooden toy section of street performanceFacebook group, survey, trip to cork, several informal focus groups or just questioning – I was lucky that I got to play and have fun and it was technically research!
Focus for design – design requirements drawn up or concluded from research stageWhat was taken from the research – what was important for the design stage:- tangibles were identified as important for play for both children and adults – children: building blocks, duplo, lego, adults: lego, card puzzles or something to figure out or explore for both children and adults interview with school teacher and créche and montessori visitor: balls encourage games and playful activity – this can also be seen with adult – sound or music encourages play and social interaction- adult focus group: board games as a way of bringing people together
Designsketching3D modelingsoftware & paper prototypinglow-fidelity prototype evaluation re-design
Jogo is a simple tangible step sequencer, a device designed to play back musical notationdevices that played rigid patterns of notes using a grid of (usually) 16 buttons, or steps, each step being 1/16th of a measure These patterns of notes are then chained together to form longer compositions. Step sequencers are monophonic by nature, although some are multitimbral, meaning they can control several different instruments but only play one note on each of those instruments.Tangible – the ballColourForm – platform, a gathering placeSensory feedback – sound Simplicity & ambiguity
Jogo is a simple tangible step sequencer, a a device designed to play back musical notationdevices that played rigid patterns of notes using a grid of (usually) 16 buttons, or steps, each step being 1/16th of a measure These patterns of notes are then chained together to form longer compositions. Step sequencers are monophonic by nature, although some are multitimbral, meaning they can control several different instruments but only play one note on each of those instruments.Tangible – the ballColourForm – platform, a gathering placeSensory feedback – sound Simplicity & ambiguity
ConferenceProposal for hardware version and further installations and observationMore researchThe development of new designs for free play
My personal motivation – decline, children missing out on what we had as children, adults needing a break from the stress and strain of everyday lifeNeed for play – for children and for adults – why its important for bothThe benefits of free open-ended playHuizinga, Stuart Brown, The Play Ethic, Lego Serious PlayPlays importance for childrenFor healthy child development – social skills, dexterityHuizingaIn his book, ‘Homo Ludens’ or ‘Man the Player’, he discusses play, presenting a study of the play element of culture, describing man the player and the importance of the “eternal play-element” of culture. Huizinga describes play as a function of the living that “is not susceptible ofexact definition either logically, biologically or aesthetically”. Play presents itself to us as “an interlude in our daily lives” and can be characterised as relaxation that is regularly recurring and that becomes an integral part of life. Play enhances life and can be seen as a necessity both for man as an individual, as a “life function” and for society because of its significance and its spiritual and social association. In his writing, Huizinga attempts to redefine and elevate the significance of play“The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.”Brian Sutton-Smith“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”George Bernard Shaw“Of all animals, humans are the biggest players of all”Stuart Brown, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, clinical researcher, and the founder of the National Institute for Play.“We are designed by nature and evolution to continue to play throughout life. Life-long play is central to our continued well-being, adaptation, and social cohesiveness.”Stuart Brown