To inform the scoping process for the Design in Action research project, I created a game that captures the wisdom of the crowd in a playful way while also engages surrounding spectators. Inspired by Luis von Ahn's game with a purpose.
Summary
Design in Action was a research project that explored how the design of information and communication technologies (ICTs) could drive business growth and positive social change in a wide range of sectors. To inform the framing of this research, I conceived of and created a collaborative two-player game to capture audience views on a wide range of areas related to ICTs. The game was designed to run on the 1 meter Spherical Puffersphere display and in a couple of browsers.
How does it work?
It is a simple two-player cooperative game where each player is shown two identical statements from a bank of current digital industry trends. Each player then has to make a decision about which trend is more important or interesting to them. For example, the choice could be between "Enhancing online security and privacy" or "Making dumb objects smart with the Internet of Things"
Players have twenty seconds to make up their mind and if the players' choices are identical (i.e. there is consensus), they earned points. The gameplay ws logged and the players' choices were analysed to inform the research scoping process.
The piece was exhibited at the launch event of the Design in Action at the Inspace exhibition venue in Edinburgh. At the event, the game was played sixteen times by 32 players, resulting in nearly two hundred ratings of twenty trends.
Collaborators
Dr Debbie Maxwell (scoping research), Diego Zamora (testing) and Pufferfish (spherical display company).