Janienke Sturm

Designing playful interactions for social interaction and physical play

This paper describes three design values that we apply for designing playful interactions. Interactive play objects can stimulate social interaction and physical play by providing motivating feedback to players’ behavior; they can allow players to create their own game goals and rules in an open-ended play context and support social player interaction patterns. This design approach is illustrated by six design cases in which our assumptions were examined in various play contexts. The results show that the application of these design values can lead to rich and appealing innovative play concepts. Players can create a wide range of (physical) games using open-ended play objects, and properties of the play objects, such as being personal or shared, influence the type of social interaction.

User-centred design and evaluation of ubiquitous services

Theoretical and technological progress has revived the interest in the design of services for the support of co-located human-human communication and collaboration, witnessing the start of several large-scale projects over the last few years. Most of these projects focus on meetings and/or lecture situations. However, user-centred design and evaluation frameworks for co-located communication and collaboration are a major concern. In this paper, we summarise the prevalent approaches towards user-centred design and evaluation, and we develop two different services. In one service, participants in a small-group meeting receive real-time feedback about observable properties of the meeting that are directly related to the social dynamics, such as individual amount of speaking time or eye-gaze patterns. In the other service, teachers in a classroom receive real-time feedback about the activities and attention level of participants in the lecture. We also propose ways to address the different dimensions that are relevant to the design and evaluation of these services (the individual, the social and the organisational dimension), bringing together methods from different disciplines.

Key issues for the successful design of an intelligent, interactive playground

An Intelligent Playground is an environment with interactive objects that, using advanced technology such as sensors and actuators, react to the interaction with the children and actively encourage children to play. Thus, an intelligent playground stimulates children to move and play together. In this way, it provides for a healthy alternative for popular pastimes such as computer games and television. We propose a design research agenda for Intelligent Playgrounds, identifying key issues regarding the design of these playgrounds: social interaction, simplicity, challenge, goals and feedback. We illustrate these issues by referring extensively to related work in this area. In addition, we present our design approach, initial findings and future plans on the basis of two case studies of new intelligent playground concepts.

Interactive play objects and the effects of open-ended play on social interaction and fun

This paper describes a study that examines the influence of openended play in interactive play objects on social interaction and fun experience of children. We developed a prototype to examine whether children enjoy playing with simple intelligent objects. Children between 7 and 11 years old were asked to play with the objects in a free-play and pre-set game session. The study shows that children create a wide variety of games and practice many social skills when negotiating the rules of various games. Overall, children felt playing with the objects in the free-play sessions was more fun than in the pre-set sessions. The insights will be used to design the next version of our play concept.

Prolonged play with the ColorFlares: how does open-ended play behavior change over time?

This paper describes an explorative user study with interactive objects for open-ended play, i.e. play with flexible game goals and rules. Children were asked to play with interactive objects, called the ColorFlares, in three free play sessions over a period of three weeks. We measured social interaction in terms of social play and social communication. We found that group play over all three sessions remained high. We also found that communication in the first session was mainly about the possibilities of the ColorFlares. Later on, communication was related more to the games that were played, giving each other feedback. We also discuss the personal and situational factors that have influence on the test results.

Design for social interaction through physical play in diverse contexts of use

Products can support user groups in social interaction and/or physical play in various ways. Depending on the requirements and needs of specific user groups and contexts of use, different approaches are applied to create successful designs. This special issue contains papers that describe designs for children, adults and elderly for sports, home and outdoor contexts. The papers in this issue explore how technology can contribute to enhancing user experiences in terms of social interaction and physical activities. Knowledge from very diverse research areas, such as, social psychology, persuasive technology, child development, human–robot interaction, and creativity is used as an inspiration source for the various projects.

Interactive Play Objects: The Influence of Multimodal Output on Open-Ended Play

In this paper we investigate how providing multiple output modalities affects open-ended play with interactive toys. We designed a play object which reacts to children’s physical behavior by providing multimodal output and we compared it with a unimodal variant, focusing on the experience and creativity of the children. In open-ended play children create their own games inspired by the interaction with a play object. We show how the modalities affect the number of games played, the type and diversity of games that the children created, and the way children used the different feedback modalities as inspiration for their games. Furthermore, we discuss the consequences of our design choices on open-ended play.

Creating opportunities for play: the influence of multimodal feedback on open-ended play

In this paper, we investigate how providing multiple feedback modalities affects open-ended play with interactive toys. We designed a play object which reacts to childrens physical behaviour by providing multimodal feedback and we compared it with a unimodal variant, focusing on the experience and creativity of the children. In open-ended play children create their own games inspired by the interaction with a play object. We show how the modalities affect the number of games played, the type and diversity of games that the children created, and the way children used the different feedback modalities as inspiration for their games. Furthermore, we discuss the consequences of our design choices on open-ended play.

Ambient Gaming and Play: Opportunities and Challenges

During the workshop on Ambient Gaming (AmGam’11) at the International Conference on Ambient Intelligence in Amsterdam, 16-18 November 2011, 17 participants from 8 different countries discussed emerging research topics around Ambient Gaming. With ambient games and play we denote playful activities that are seamlessly integrated within our daily lives in such a way that the boundaries between other activities and play disappear or blur. Ambient games blend the virtual and real world and are interacted with through multiple ubiquitous devices. Ambient games and play have a strong motivational character and may offer more natural and improved interaction. However, we are also faced with many challenges, not only technological, but societal and ethical as well.

An Active Lifestyle for Youths through Ambient Persuasive Technology. Implementing Activating Concepts in a School Environment

The PlayFit project aims to design for a structural reduction in sedentary behavior throughout the day. The challenge is to engage teenagers by connecting to their mainly sedentary lifestyle by playful persuasion. Therefore we defined four design principles: (1) embedded in the context (2) trigger an intrinsic need to play, (3) adapt to a personal playing style and (4) facilitate open-ended and/or emergent play. In the past three years we have been exploring solutions through design research and applied these insights to three new concepts, each tying into a different aspect of a school day. In this paper we share the first insights in applying these design principles and implementing the concepts that help reducing sedentary behavior in schools for vocational education.