Interesting view on design. Design not for a usable product but to play with the user. Goes against a whole bunch of design principles, but there have been a whole raft of examples of misuse of products, or overcoming interface woes. Take the web, teletext or the unix command line interface.
I’m reminded in his thinking about game design. In game design you specifically do not make things easy to do. It’s a competition/puzzle/feat against the game. You do compete against the product and try and overcome it. So maybe some of this “play” could be used on other products. But in the right sort of way. I’ve seen some product design that people call “playful” but usually it’s just cute or whimsical.
Any suggestions for products that are hard to use but actually fun to use?
Or products that are meant to be fun but are just cute?
My mind is a blank and I’m going for a walk in the sun while it lasts.
September 29th, 2003 at 9:37 pm
I reckon the closest we have to this are some flash games you get around the place. I don’t think they’re information hunting interfaces really, but as you say, specifically designed for fun.
Where we have a need to accomplish a goal, that is other than to have fun, the amusement in this an experience designed to ‘fox’ you is limited at best.
It’s all about context imo. Context in purpose of design and context of the goal in using that design.