Playful design

It is no surprise that the world of imagination is more accessible to children, not

hardened by the years of pattern recognition, conditioning adults to categorize their
experiences based on defined expectations. Children have the uncanny ability to turn
everything into play, they will readily be as amused playing with a box, housing the toy,
as with the toy itself, not tainted by the compartmentalization of their past experiences.

These experiences are often utilized by designers, drawing upon standard conventions
and commonly understood symbols to create a more discoverable, understandable, and
usable design. The structure, recognized from past experiences makes it easier for
people to use new things, thus the idea of implementing established patterns. Building
on top of these patterns can make new experiences feel intuitive, but conforming to
expectations also can make a design fairly unremarkable, defined more by an absence
of negatives than by the presence of uniqueness.

Good design strives to go beyond the elimination of inconveniences and sticking to the
standards. Purposefully defying expectations in a playful way can often lead to a better
experience, snapping people out of their everyday routine to surprise and delight them
in some way. These kinds of playful moments also require a designer to step outside
the familiar pattern and to view the problem through the fresh and imaginative eyes of a
child, discovering the world around him, instead of the lens of established patterns and
conventions.

Playfulness is not something one can throw-in at the end of a project, but it is a quality
that should be deeply intertwined with the product's form and function. Representing an
alternative approach to solving a problem, a playful design represents a new way of
looking at the world, defying the ordinary while maintaining functionality and quality.

The value of play is often only linked with children, yet playfulness is not about making
toys. It is a quality that enables designers to bring human values to products and
experiences, stepping beyond the engineering concerns of performance and
functionality by bringing humor, creating moments of amusement through the use of the
product.

As Alessio Alessi, the president of the US division of the Italian housewares

manufacturer Alessi, said, the "irony is a very important element" of their products as it
can communicate beyond "representing a functional aspect but also representing an
emotional aspect" (Interview with Alessio Alessi. 2011 Design Miami, 2011) . Alessi
would host workshops, referred to as "metaprojects" [Design meta-project - Laura
Polinoro, 2020] for young aspiring designers for an intensive week of creative
exploration. These workshops focus on open-ended topics, with titles such as Memory
Containers, Bio Memory, or The (Un)Forbidden City, which serve as a "hypothetical
social-culture scenario that can act as a breeding ground for new projects." [Alessi
Explores the Potential of Chinese Product Design]
One of such metaprojects, the Family Follows Fiction (F.F.F.), which began in 1991,
resulted in a series of playful reinterpretations of common houseware products, adding
a humorous twist to ordinary objects. While being an exploration of the "emotional
structure of objects" [F.F.F, 2008], the project aimed to direct the creative process of
children to uncover affective responses to the shape and structure of objects, resulting
in a series of playful products, each fulfilling its purpose while delightfully surprising the
user with its personality.

One of the outcomes of the F.F.F. metaproject, the Magic Bunny toothpick holder by
Stefano Giovannoni depicts a plastic bunny with long ears, sunk into a large hat. When
the bunny is lifted out, the metaphor of the magician's hat comes into play by revealing
the toothpicks hiding inside. Sitting on a tabletop, the toothpicks are kept dust-free until
the bunny is lifted to reveal a delightful and playful surprise, thus not only fulfilling its
function but also adding unexpected humor to the interaction with an object.

Alessi Magic Bunny toothpick holder (photo credit: Kuen Chang)

But playfulness as a concept works only if the product truly fulfills its primary function,
reinforcing each other, rather than being a mere gimmick. Domo here was introduced to
the world in 1998 as the official mascot of the Japanese television station NHK, quickly
becoming a famous Internet meme and gaining the status of pop culture icon.
Harvesting the popularity of the character, many toys and advertising campaigns utilized
the character, but for our purpose, we will look at one particular example of such
campaigns — the Domo Toaster.
Domo Toaster (photo credit: Kuen Chang)

The shape and the color of the toaster mimic perfectly the distinctive character,
featuring its face printed on the body. But it goes a step further — the toaster would
actually burn an image of the Domo on a piece of bread. "What a delight!" one might
think to himself, yet this initial surprise and wonder will quickly fall short when the user
tries the toast. The reason is that to imprint a recognizable likeness of the character's
face on a piece of bread, the eyes and the mouth require to be burned in, while the
surrounding bread is toasted ever so slightly, producing a very mediocre, uneven toast
as a tradeoff for a seemingly playful image. While it may be fun and provide amusement
to hardened Domo fans, it utterly fails to integrate this amusement value with its
function, proving to be useless as a toaster. The danger of designing a playful product is
in the requirement to balance out humor with the value. On one side of the spectrum,
there is the Magic Bunny, where playfulness and functionality are intertwined and
reinforce each other, and the Domo Toaster, on the other side, where playfulness is
placed in opposition to the core value of a product. There is, however, a middle ground,
which can be considered a safe space for many designers, where a moment of humor is
somewhat discrete — it can be added without getting in the way, but only for those
users who would go looking.

A good example of this middle ground can be found in the smartphone app Timehop,
which collects one's activity over all social media from a particular day in history,
providing sort of a flashback in time (thus the name). At the bottom of the app's main
scroll view, an illustrated dinosaur (the app's mascot) can be found. At the first glance,
only half of the dinosaur is shown, while the bottom half appears to be hidden below the
screen. However, if the user continues to scroll down, to their amusement the dino is
revealed to be wearing boxer shorts, and as soon as they lift their finger from the
screen, the playful indiscretion is hidden yet again. This acts as a hidden feature for
those who find it, and even checking it every day can be amusing, as the dinosaur's
bottom half could one day be swapped for a unique variation like scuba gear, instead of
boxer shorts.

Abe, Timehop’s dinosaur mascot

Just like a hidden dino bottom, there is a grand opportunity for delight in the
unexpected. There are a lot of expectations for products that seem familiar or serve a
similar purpose and those products would really vary only slightly from those that came
before them. When a designer purposefully subverts these assumptions through
unexpected material, scale, form, or functionality, the product breaks free from
underlying patterns of assumption, surprising, and catching the user's attention. To
avoid becoming obnoxious and remain playful, the unexpected design must be
extremely careful as to remain coherent to its original purpose, ideally, making perfect
sense after the initial moment of surprise wears off.

A truly grand example of such design is the Anglepoise Giant 1227 floor lamp, designed
to pay homage to the Original 1227, designed in 1935 by George Carwardine, who
came up with a novel approach to use springs with constant tension that allowed the
articulated stand of the lamp to be repositioned flexibly while remaining well balanced.
In 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre approached Anglepoise with a
proposal to design a version of the lamp at a gigantic scale. [About Anglepoise] The
Giant lamp was created to pay tribute to Dahl's writing process (who wrote many of his
fantastical tales at a desk, illuminated by the Original 1227) in a manner appropriate to
the imagination of his characters (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, the BFG
just to name the few).

Anglepoise Giant 1227 floor lamp (photo credit: Anglepoise)

The Giant 1227 playfully distorts reality, reducing adults to the size of children in its
presence. Returning to the thesis of pattern conditioning, we have forced ourselves to
expect a particular form at a certain size, so it is captivating to come across a familiar
form but of a much greater size. Importantly, it is not the scale of a lamp itself that
makes this particular design playful, but the fact that it is a scaling of such an iconic
form.

Not all unexpected designs are revealed instantly, however. Just as the Giant 1227
makes a bold, grand stance in announcing its presence, some designs rely on a clever
disguise, mimicking the appearance of another product in a playful way. At first glance,
the Muji Bath Radio, designed by the Industrial Facility appears to be a shampoo bottle,
fitting perfectly the context of a shower or bath among other similar bottles. The
playfulness of its true identity is revealed when one twists the cap, not to open the
bottle, but to turn on the radio, as sounds begin to play from a waterproof speaker. To
change the radio station, the user has to flip the bottle over, as if he is trying to get the
shampoo out — a design choice very appropriate to the context of a shower.

Muji Bath Radio (photo credit: Industrial Facility)

The Bath Radio employs a smart camouflage, intentionally obscuring its functionality at
first glance. For anyone who would encounter the product without warning, the initial
discovery provides a pleasant surprise, but the true delight is revealed in long-term use,
as the novelty dissipates and the realization of the appropriateness of the design sets
in.
The principles behind this simple radio raise a set of very good questions in design
practice. How to create products that would seamlessly fit their environment to the point
of disappearing? Can this purposeful obscurity serve as a playful extension of the
design, instead of simply being an absence of presence? Based on context, what
functionality truly needs to be exposed, and what could be hidden away? Can other
seemingly disparate activities be unified in their design because they happen at the
same time and place?

Some of the most delightful moments in life are the unexpected interactions we have
with people surrounding us. In an urban environment we are constantly surrounded by
hundreds of people, yet most of the time we have little chance to meet and socialize
with them. Playful design at the urban scale can break those personal bubbles of ours,
providing an environment for potential play and interaction with others.

One such example is a project called 21 Balancoires (21 Swings), installed by the Daily
tous les jours studio, that focuses on fostering interaction and collaboration between
strangers.[About] It is unexpected as it is to find playground equipment among the cars
and buses on either side of a narrow piece of land where the swings are installed[21
Balançoires], but these brightly colored swings with lit-up bottoms are much more than a
mere children's fare. The hidden magic is revealed through use when one realizes that
each swing is actually a part of a massive musical instrument.

Swings by Daily tous les jours (photo credit: Olivier Blouin)

As they swing, each one produces a different musical note: nine play piano sounds, six
sound like guitars, and six others mimic a vibraphone.[8] The sounds are altered by the
movement — the higher you swing the higher the pitch of the note will be. The true
spectacle and genius of this installation are discovered when people swing together.
Coherent music can only be created if people swing in collaboration with each other, as
by coordinating movements, participants can play the swings as one harmonious
instrument. Some sounds are produced only when people swing together, including a
special one that is only revealed when all 21 swings are moving together.

Projects like this show the importance of playfulness in our daily lives, as Pierre Fortin,
the activity coordinator for the Quartier des Spectacles affirms the value of play at a
grander intersocial scale, “you watch people on the swings, and they all have a big
smile on their face.”[ 21-Swing Orchestra Strikes a Chord with Users in Quartier Des
Spectacles, Jeff Heinrich, 2011]

Lightening the mood is a wonderful emotional boost and a gentle reminder not to take
things too seriously. But some situations really are serious, and playful design plays an
important role in making those situations less stressful. A famous example of a playful
design in a daunting environment is the case of Doug Diets who specializes in CT and
MRI machine design[Doug Dietz]. There is nothing fun about getting an MRI scan, and
for children, being stuck in a machine, narrow space with all the banging and whirling
around is a very anxious experience. A successful MRI scan requires a patient to lie
very still, so children will often need to endure repeated scans or even be sedated.

The size and the noise inherent to the MRI technology were out of Diet's reach, so he
offered emotional support by reimagining the overall experience as a playful adventure.
The entire hospital room would be transformed into the decoration for the adventure and
the machine would become a canoe, where children are told to "hold still so that they
don’t rock the boat”[ From Terrifying to Terrific: The Creative Journey of the Adventure
Series, 2012], a spaceship flying through the galaxy, or a submarine. The redesign was
so successful, that some children even wondered if they could come again later to
repeat the experience.[ The Story of Doug Dietz: Creative Confidence in the MRI Suite,
David Kelley, 2013]
GE Adventure Series scanner (photo credit: Meredith Adams-Smart)

Whether to provide a pleasant surprise, delight the user through the distortion of
perceived patterns, bring people together or reduce the anxiety of a stressful situation,
designers have a responsibility to create useful and usable designs, that perform well
without being frustrating. But the usability is only a baseline, the foundation of a truly
desirable, empathetic, and enjoyable experience. Playfulness is a way to elevate a
design, to go beyond the functionality to create a meaningful emotional connection
between people and objects. Playfulness, however, will not emerge from any particular
process. It takes creative exploration, lots of trial and error, an iterative evaluation to see
if playfulness can be integrated with a design, enhancing it, and working to its strengths.
But a playful product will unlikely emerge from a committee or A/B testing. Playfulness
comes unexpectedly for the user, intensifying the experience of interacting with a
product in a humorous and delightful manner. It cannot always be measured and
testified, so it may not be thought of as a part of the traditional user-centered design
process, but there is nothing more human than designing to support emotional well-
being alongside functional needs. After all, play is not only for children. We could all
benefit from a little more humor in our lives.
Bibliography:

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Magazines:
1. Jeff Heinrich, “21-Swing Orchestra Strikes a Chord with Users in Quartier Des
Spectacles,” Montreal Gazette, May 11, 2011.