The UX Series, question 2: what can we learn from game design?

Notes-on-Game-Design-smallerThe UX Series is going ahead… and today Daniel Burwen (Operation Ajax) and David Dufresne (Fort McMoney) explore the question: “what can i-doc producers learn from game design”?

Two weeks have passed since Paula Zuccotti, Ingrid Kopp and Jason Brush opened the debate on “what can we learn from design thinking that could be useful when starting an i-doc production”. By looking at their contributions, I am noticing four salient points:

1 – design thinking is not about giving authorship to the user, but about understanding his needs, his goals, his context, and using all this information as a source of inspiration.

2 – interaction is more than clicking: the digital file offers options f customisation, personalisation and out of screen experience that have not been used enough in interactive narrative.

3 – agile development is key: without prototyping and reiterations – tweaking both the interface and the original idea – the product is conceptually static and distant from the user.

4 – successful projects have a clear proposition at their core – it is not complexity that makes them stand out, but the clarity of what they bring to the users.

Matching a clear proposition with an effective design and navigation will be the focal point of the next questions in the UX Series, but I thought the insistence in the importance of agile design was calling for a deeper look into an industry that has embraced such a dynamic logic of design: the game industry.

I have therefore asked Daniel Burwen (Operation Ajax) and David Dufresne (Fort McMoney) to give us their point of view on “what can i-doc producers learn from game design”. See what two of the most forward thinking creators of our industry have to say…