Tag: events

What I’m doing at the Festival of Games

tglobe

I’ve helped out with the program of this year’s NLGD Festival of Games. If you’re into gaming’s fringe phenomena, then this edition is not to be missed. The conference’s theme is “play global, global play” and will celebrate the impact of gaming beyond the screen. I curated several sessions focused on urban games and alternate reality games, some of which I will be present at myself. Here they are in no particular order:

  • Adrian Hon of Six to Start is coming over to Utrecht for a keynote titled “Why stories in games suck”. Adrian was one of the people behind the ambitious and influential ARG Perplex City. For a taste of what this session might be like, check out Dan Hon’s1 talk “Everything you know about ARGs is WRONG”.

  • During a parallel session, Evert Hoogendoorn will look at performance in games. Evert heads up the Design for Virtual Theater and Games program at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Knowing Evert, this session won’t be just about performance…

  • I’ll be moderating a session consisting of three case studies. You’ll get an exclusive look behind the scenes of the practice of three seasoned designers of urban games and ARGs. The presentations will be short but sweet, each followed by ample time for Q&A. The people I’ve asked to present are the aforementioned Adrian Hon, Nathalie Brähler of Cultural Oil and Ronald Lenz of 7scenes.

  • The elusive Minkette and myself will run a three-hour workshop, where you’ll get a crash course in designing simple but fun street games. We’re hoping to make this session very accessible, but also very much hands-on, physical and active. Minkette has been involved with Punchdrunk, Hide & Seek and The Soho Project; what better facilitator can you wish for?

  • The games developed during the workshop will be available for playtesting during a separate open session. You’ll get to play fun little games, and will be asked to vote on your favourite. The winner will receive an awesome prize.

  • Update: Before the open playtest session, I’ll be hosting a lunch session open to all people working in the area of social and tangible play. It’s on the program as “ARG lunch” but don’t let that fool you. If you make urban games, pervasive games, or any type of game that’s not limited to what happens on the screen, you’re welcome to join us. We’ll be looking at how we can join forces in certain strategic areas, but the session is also just about getting to know each other.

And there you have it. I’m quite happy with the way the program has shaped up, and I am excited to see how the sessions turn out (though I’m sure they’ll be great). If this has wet your appetite, why not head over to the NLGD Festival of Games website and get yourself a ticket right now? I hope to see you there!

  1. Dan is Adrian’s brother and business partner [↩]

Looking back on a second This happened – Utrecht

Some more catching up with things that occurred recently; on Monday February 23 we1 had our second This happened. I am quite satisfied with how things went.

For one; we had some unplanned cohesion2 amongst talks.3 Three out of four talks discussed the use of field research (to use the term broadly). It was good to have some discussion of how this is put in practice, as I often find ethnographic techniques being presented as some kind of silver bullet, but without any clear demonstration of its application. It was also cool to see field research being applied effectively in such different contexts (primary school, the elderly, South Africa).

To my relief, a significantly larger percentage of the audience (compared to last time) was female.4 This was something we had worked consciously towards, since the first edition’s testosterone quotient was a bit too high. In my opinion, a more diverse audience is conducive to the kind of relaxed, open and honest atmosphere we are pursuing. The main way we tried to draw in a more balanced mix of people was by inviting more female speakers. Three out of four talks were by women. All of them were great. It seems to have worked.

I love that This happened seems to be a venue for the kind of unassuming and honest presentations we somehow stop giving once we leave design school (or at least I have). I can’t think of other events where I am treated to such wonderful war stories from the front-lines of interaction design.

The discussions after each session were good again as well. Lots of thoughtful questions, critical, but fair. Alper was kind enough to keep minutes, and has blogged the most salient parts over at his site (in Dutch).5

Our friends in London launched a new website that now contains videos and slides of all talks from past events. The Utrecht sessions are on there too, so go have a look. It already is an amazing collection of high-quality content. Some of my current favourites are Troika, Crispin Jones and Schulze & Webb.6

The next This happened – Utrecht (number three) is set for June 29. Hope to see you there.

  1. Alexander, Ianus and I [↩]
  2. Iskander spotted it first, this is a blog post in Dutch discussing the parallels between the talks [↩]
  3. Honestly, this was not something we had aimed for beforehand. [↩]
  4. I realize in the tech scene this has once again become a hot topic, see for instance this discussion over at Chris Messina’s blog. [↩]
  5. I’ve collected more posts on our second edition over at Delicious. [↩]
  6. While you’re there, why not vote for This happened in the Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009 awards at the Design Museum? [↩]

The 2nd Dutch ‘This happened’ is coming this way

We’re less than four weeks removed from the second edition of ‘This happened – Utrecht’. As you may know, this is an event I am organizing and curating together with Alexander and Ianus. We’re trying to offer an alternative to flashy product-focused (and fuzzy theory-based) sessions that are prevalent in the interaction design event landscape. ‘This happened’ presentations are short stories about how a project came to be, warts and all. Think of them as the DVD extras for interaction design.

This happened – Utrecht #1

On Monday February 23, we’ll return to Theater Kikker in Utrecht, the Netherlands for #2. Our first edition was a success, and I’m really looking forward to continuing the experiment. Here’s who we’ve invited this time to come and shed light on one of their projects:

  • Niels Keetels, a game design researcher at the HKU, will be talking about Softbody. A game that is interesting because of its lush expressive visuals, as well as the clever balancing of open-ended and goal-directed play. Oh, and how many games fo you know that had their mechanics inspired by honest-to-goodness field research?
  • Sanne Kistemaker of Muzus will present Piece of Family, which was developed in collaboration with Vodafone. It’s a communication device designed for the elderly, composed of a sketchpad and a scanner, which instantly posts whatever’s written to a blog. The design won a prestigious Dutch Design Award.
  • Irene van Peer, a celebrated product designer, will talk about the Mahlangu Hand-washer, which was featured in the New York Times 8th Annual Year in Ideas. It is both a product (developed as part of a sanitation project in Africa) that involves converting the cap of an empty bottle into a homemade tap, as well as a set of instructions that can be passed on from person to person.
  • Finally, we have Naomi Schiphorst and Mieke Vullings of MIMOA, who will show how their free and open online guide to modern architecture came into being. The site is aimed at a broad audience, not just architects, and aims to build a durable community.

Head over to the This happened – Utrecht website for expanded descriptions of the talks (in Dutch). The registration will open on Monday February 9. I hope to see you there!

What I’ve been up to lately

You might be wondering what’s been going on at the Leapfrog studio lately, since I haven’t really posted anything substantial here in a while. Quite some stuff has happened — and I’ll hopefully get back into posting longer articles soon — but for now, here’s a list of more or less interesting things I have been doing:

This happened – Utrecht

We had our first This happened – Utrecht on November 3. I think we succeeded in creating an event that really looks at the craft of interaction design. I’m happy to say we’re planning to do three events next year — all at Theater Kikker in Utrecht — and we’ve got lots of cool speakers in mind. If you want to make sure you won’t miss them, subscribe to our newsletter (in Dutch).1

Teaching

My students are nearing the end of their project. They’ve been hard at work creating concepts for mobile social games with a musical component; they came up with 20 in total. Now they’re prototyping two of them, and I must say it’s looking good. They’ll have to present the games to the project’s commissioner — a major mobile phone manufacturer — somewhere the beginning of January 2009. I hope to be able to share some of the results here afterwards.

Office space

Since December 1 I am a resident of the Dutch Game Garden’s Business Club. That means I now have a nice office smack in the centre of Utrecht. The building’s home to lots of wonderful games companies, some, like me, operating on the fringes — like FourceLabs and Monobanda. If you’re curious and would like to drop by for a tour, a coffee and some conversation, let me know.

Brainstorm

I was invited do help compose one of the cases for the ‘Grote Amsterdamse Waterbrainwave’. A one-day brainstorm in which 45 students from various institutions were asked to come up with water-related innovations that would make the Netherlands a significant global player once again. It was organised by the Port of Amsterdam, Waternet and Verleden van Nederland2. I also attended the day itself as an outside expert on games and the creative industry in general. Read a report of the event at FD.nl (in Dutch).

Book

Dan Saffer’s book Designing Gestural Interfaces has been published by O’Reilly and is now available. Turn to page 109 and you’ll find a storyboard by yours truly used for illustration purposes. That’s the first time any work of mine is featured in print, so naturally I’m quite proud. I have yet to receive my copy, but got a sneak peek this weekend and I must say it looks promising. If you’re a designer needing to get up to speed with multi-touch, physical computing and such, this should be a good place to start.

That’s about it for now. There’s a lot of exciting stuff in the works, the outcomes of which I will hopefully be able to share with you in 2009.

  1. The creators of This happened in London have been nominated for a best of the year award by the Design Museum, by the way. Well-deserved, I would say! [↩]
  2. A cross-media campaign aimed at increasing awareness of Dutch national history. [↩]

Collaboratively designing Things through sketching

So far, Ianus, Alexander and I have announced three of the four people who’ll be speaking at the first Dutch This happened. They are Fabian of Ronimo Games, Philine of Supernana and Dirk of IR labs The final addition to this wonderful line-up is Werner Jainek of Cultured Code, the developers of Things, a task management application for Mac OS X as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch.

When I first got in touch with the guys at Cultured Code, I asked who of the four principals was responsible for interaction design. I was surprised to hear that a large part of the interaction design is a collaborative effort. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom in design circles: You’re not supposed to design by committee. Yet no-one can deny Things’ interaction design is solid, focused and cohesive.

Things touch still life by Cultured Code

Werner and his associates collaborate through vigorous sketching. Sometimes they produce many mock-ups to iron out apparently simple bits of the application. A prime example being this recurring tasks dialog. Just look at all the alternatives they explored. Their attention to detail is admirable. Also, take a look at the photos they posted when they announced Things touch. I’m sure that, if you’re a designer, you can’t help but love carefully examining the details of such work in progress.

Werner tells me he’s been busy scanning lots of sketches to share at This happened – Utrecht #1. I can’t wait to hear his stories about how the design of both the desktop and mobile app have happened.

Werner completes our line-up. Which you can see in full at thishappened.nl. There, you’ll also be able to register for the event starting this Monday (20 October). I hope to see you on 3 November, it promises to be a lovely filled with the stories behind interaction design.

How a student game became a Wii and DS title

It’s time to start revealing the speakers for This happened – Utrecht #1. First up is Fabian Akker, co-founder of the independent studio Ronimo Games. The studio was funded with money Fabian and his colleagues earned by selling the concept behind one of their games to THQ.1 The game is called De Blob, and the new version is now available on the Nintendo Wii and DS.2 As part of a 3rd year assignment at the Utrecht School of the Arts’ Game Design and Development course, De Blob was created for the municipality of Utrecht. The aim was to allow people to explore the city’s future station area, which is under heavy reconstruction. You could therefore call De Blob a serious game – a game that is not only fun but also useful. It is not often that a serious game makes the transition to a title aimed purely at entertainment. It is more often the case that an entertainment concept gets injected with some ‘serious’ content, with usually disappointing results. At This happened – Utrecht #1 Fabian, who was the original game’s lead designer, will share the story of how it came to be.

Screenshot of De Blob, created by Ronimo Games, published by THQ

I announced This happened – Utrecht #1 last week. The event takes place on Monday 3 October at 20:30. Registration will open next Monday (20 October) — space is limited so mark your calendars!

Curious about the rest of the line-up? Tomorrow, Ianus will announce our second speaker. Update: go read what Ianus has to say about Philine of Supernana.

  1. THQ is a large publisher of games, such as Saints Row and Age of Empires. [↩]
  2. The game was redeveloped by an outside studio. [↩]

Announcing This happened – Utrecht

I’m happy to announce This happened – Utrecht; a series of events for interaction designers that I have been working on together with Ianus Keller and Alexander Zeh. On Monday 3 November we’ll have our first edition at Theater Kikker. I’m keeping the line-up to myself for now, but I can assure you it is awesome.

At This happened, you’ll get four to five short lectures by interaction designers about the process behind one of their projects. Each lecture is followed by ample time for discussion. We invite speakers from many different domains, such as products, web, software, games, architecture and art. This way, we hope to show that although the outcomes are different, there is a lot to learn from fellow designers working in areas other than your own.

This happened has been going on in London for some time now, with great success. I can’t remember when exactly I first came across the concept, but I do know that from the start I wanted to introduce it in the Netherlands. Imagine my excitement when I received an enthusiastic response to my proposal from the guys in London.

I believe This happened really adds something to the design event landscape. It isn’t often you get to go somewhere to hear about the hard work that went into finished projects. Usually, you either get a demo of what has been achieved, or you hear someone talk about what it is he would like to work on, not what he’s actually done. Neither is very informative for practising designers. At This happened, the focus is firmly on process, not on outcome, and on making & doing, not (only) on thinking.

Registration is free and will open around two weeks before the event starts. Watch this space, or keep an eye on the official This happened – Utrecht website (in Dutch).

Reboot 10 slides and video

I am breaking radio-silence for a bit to let you know the slides and video for my Reboot 10 presentation are now available online, in case you’re interested. I presented this talk before at The Web and Beyond, but this time I had a lot more time, and I presented in English. I therefore think this might still be of interest to some people.1 As always, I am very interested in receiving constructive criticism Just drop me a line in the comments.

Update: It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to briefly summarize what this is about. This is a presentation in two parts. In the first, I theorize about the emergence of games that have as their goal the conveying of an argument. These games would use the real-time city as their platform. It is these games that I call urban procedural rhetorics. In the second part I give a few examples of what such games might look like, using a series of sketches.

The slides, posted to SlideShare, as usual:

Urban Procedural Rhetorics @ Reboot 10
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

The video, hosted on the Reboot website:

  1. I did post a transcript in English before, in case you prefer reading to listening. [↩]

Design-related endnotes for MoMo AMS #7

Yesterday I attended my first Mobile Monday in Amsterdam. The theme was “value” and in my mind, I had already equated the term with “user experience”. This was a mistake. Contrary to my expectations, the event was well outside of my comfort zone. Discussions were dominated by business and technology perspectives. I found the experience frustrating at times, but I guess this is good. Frustration often leads to new insights. Therefore, although this may not sound as a recommendation, I would say MoMo is an event worth visiting for any designer interested in mobility. It will remind you that in this industry, many ideas you take for granted are far from accepted.

I thought I’d share some thoughts concerning the salient points of the evening.

Context

Context was often equated with location. To me, these two are far from the same. Location is, at best, a component of context, which also involves what people are doing, who else is there, what objects are present, etc. But, more importantly: Context arises from interactions, it is relational and therefore cannot be objectified. Coincidentally, Adam Greenfield has posted some valuable insights on this topic.

As an example, consider a person present in the White House, in the possession of a firearm, in clear sight of the president. The meaning of this situation (i.e. the context) depends completely on who this person is and what his motivations are. He might be working (bodyguarding the president), he might be at war (making an attempt at the president’s life) or he might be playing around (the gun isn’t real, he’s the president’s son).

Anyway — I subscribe to the view that we should not attempt to guess context, the above example has hopefully shown that this is an impossible task. (At least, as long as we cannot reliably read the minds of people.) In stead, we should ‘limit’ ourselves to giving places, things, etc. a voice in the conversation (making them self-describing, and accountable) and having context arise those voices, as determined by the people involved.

Open source

Ajit Jaokar posited that open source mobile software (such as Android) will lead to new device manufacturers entering the arena. The analogy was made to the PC industry with the emergence of white-label boxes. I wonder though, for this to truly happen, shouldn’t the hardware be open-sourced too, not (just) the software?

In any case, I think having more handset manufacturers is wonderful. Not in the least for the fact that it will open the door for a more diverse offering, one potentially tailored to regions so far under-served by device manufacturers. Which brings me to my next point.

Local, global, diversity, relevance…

Several speakers alluded to the fact that mobile is a global market, and that businesses shouldn’t be shy about launching world-wide. I see several issues with this. First of all, without wanting to sound too anti-globalistic, do we really want to continue on making stuff that is the same no matter where you go? I find diversity a vital stimulus in my life and would hate to see software experiences become more and more the same the world over.

Let’s in stead consider the following: A service that might make perfect sense in one locale very likely does not offer any distinctive value in another. I think the example of the now defunct Skoeps1, which was discussed at the event, illustrates this perfectly. It did not work in the Dutch market, but offers real value in ‘developing’ countries, where the amount of video crews on the ground is limited and images captured by locals using mobile phones are therefore a welcome addition to the ‘official’ coverage.

Context redux

Which brings me back to the question of context, but in this case, the role it plays not as a component of a service, but in the design and development process itself. I was sad to see the most important point of Rachel Hinman’s video message go unnoticed (at least, judging from the fact that it was not discussed at all). She said that starting point for any new service should be to go out “into the wild” and observe what people are doing, what they want, what they need, what they enjoy and so on.2 From this real and deep understanding of people’s contexts, you can start making meaningful choices that will help you create something that offers true value.

It was this notion of starting from people’s context that I found most lacking at MoMo AMS. Besides Hinman, I was surprised to find only Yme Bosma of Hyves3 alluding to it. Who’d have thought?

  1. Skoeps — pronounced “scoops” — was a social video site focused on citizen journalism. It went out of business because not enough “users” were “generating content”. Ugh. [↩]
  2. Not surprisingly, Hinman works at Adaptive Path. Athough I very much agree with her presentation’s premise, I felt her example was a bit disingenuous. I find it hard to believe Apple designed iTunes to fit the mixtape usage scenario. This, I think, is more of a happy coincidence than anything else. [↩]
  3. Hyves is the biggest social networking site of the Netherlands. [↩]

Slides and summary for ‘More Than Useful’

Update: The video and slides are now available on the conference site.

The conference From Business to Buttons 2008 aimed to bring together the worlds of business and interaction design. I was there to share my thoughts on the applicability of game design concepts to interaction design. You’ll find my slides and a summary of my argument below.

I really enjoyed attending this conference. I met a bunch of new and interesting people and got to hang out with some ‘old’ friends. Many thanks to InUse for inviting me.

Diagram summarizing my FBTB 2008 talk

The topic is pretty broad so I decided to narrow things down to a class of product that is other-than-everyday — meaning both wide and deep in scope. Using Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things as a starting point, I wanted to show that these products require a high level of explorability that is remarkably similar to play. After briefly examining the phenomenon of play itself I moved on to show applications of this understanding to two types of product: customizable & personalizable ones, and adaptive ones.

For the former, I discussed how game design frameworks such as MDA can help with sculpting the parameter space, using ‘experience’ as the starting point. I also looked at how games support players in sharing stories and speculated about ways this can be translated to both digital and physical products.

For the latter — adaptive products — I focussed on the ways in which they induce flow and how they can recommend stuff to people. With adaptation, designers need to formulate rules. This can be done using techniques from game design, such as Daniel Cook’s skill chains. Successful rules-based design can only happen in an iterative environment using lots of sketching.

The presentation was framed by a slightly philosophical look at how certain games subliminally activate cognitive processes and could thus be used to allow for new insights. I used Breakout and Portal as examples of this. I am convinced there is an emerging field of playful products that interaction designers should get involved with.

Sources referenced in this presentation:1

As usual, many thanks to all the Flickr photographers who’ve shared their images under a CC license. I’ve linked to the originals from the slides. Any image not linked to is probably mine.

  1. Most of these are offline books or papers, those that aren’t have been hyperlinked to their source. [↩]