Just watched a recording of Tim Brown 's TED talk, "Tales of creativity and play"
I was at a screening that is open to the public, at the co-working space The Hive (Facebook: https://facebook.com/thehivecarpenter/ )
In his talk, Mr. Brown highlighted a number of exercises/techniques, that designers use, and which are modelled on, or inspired by, how little children play:
- The technique called “thinking with your hands”. Its analogue among children is so-called “construction play”, such as building towers from little blocks, knocking the towers down, and building them again, over and over. An example of this technique, among designers, is building prototypes of an idea quickly, even if the prototype looks like a crude hotch-potch of everyday objects: plasticine, small bottles of deodorant, and so on.
- Role play. How children role-play need not be elaborated, I believe: playing House, playing Tea-time, and so on. From what Mr. Brown says, designers can use role play to switch perspective(s) from the designer (of a service) to the user (of that service).
It seems worth mentioning that Mr. Brown said that play is not anarchy. Play has rules. For example, if little children play Cops & Robbers, they are acting out a socially agreed script.
Definitely interesting to think about - for me, at least. I hope it’s interesting for you, too.
I link to the TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_tales_of_creativity_and_play?language=en