I came across an article today which grabbed my attention. It was about the design of restaurant menus and the ‘tricks’ used to get you to buy… an interesting intersection between design and psychology. The article relates to the work of William Poundstone, US author of Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It). According to Poundstone, the way particular food items are presented within a menu is a key factor which drives us to buy them. For example, when people open a menu, the first thing they do is look at its upper right-hand corner according to Poundstone. As you’d think, this is the place where restaurants place their highest profit item and one that sets the ‘tone’ of the eatery. According to Poundstone this item, known as an “anchor” is often an expensive item such as a plate of seafood. (And for those familiar with them, eye tracking and usability testing can find similar areas for websites). The article also includes other tasty morsels of information about how are minds are ‘manipulated’ via menu design… sounds like there’s plenty of ‘thought for food’ in that!
Recently I had the opportunity to take my kids to “Toy Story 3″ (http://disney.go.com/toystory/)at IMAX, Fox Studios. It was quite fortuitous for me as I had also just finished reading “Innovate the Pixar Way” (http://amzn.to/aU4hnt) and seen a story about Pixar on 60 minutes (http://bit.ly/9SAK5V) which I’ve also embedded below. So what’s this got to do with games and play, apart from the obvious connection to toys in the film’s title? We’ll for me, the real heart lies in how a playful attitude is harnessed as a means to foster and enhance innovation and creativity.
The fruits of Pixar’s work are clear to all, as they have forged ahead in effect creating an industry on the boundary between computer science and animated filmmaking. Works like Luxo Jr., Reds Dream, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Toy Story still resonate with audiences. But at the core, is creating an environment which, by embracing play, aims to innovate and have people think differently. For me, this is the reason why Pixar create such innovative and exciting products. By providing a series of constraints to a whole lot of filmmakers and come up with interesting solutions… is the essence of design thinking. And “Innovate the Pixar Way” is filled with plenty of examples of this, along with some of strategies they use to develop creativity. If you’ve ever read any books on Disney and the way they create experiences for people, you’ll find a lot of similarities here.
The upshot of this for me is that, increasingly businesses are looking at new ways of thinking, of creating products and experiences never seen before… of doing things differently both within and external to their organization. And at the core of achieving this is embracing innovation through creative thinking and a playful attitude. Consequently, while a “work/play” dichotomy still tends to dominate corporate culture, this is changing, and play will become more important within corporate culture.
This year I was fortunate enough to attend SimTecT 2010 as a business representative of PlaytoResearch (http://playtoresearch.com). This was a fabulous experience, and I was able to meet some old colleagues from Krome Studios in addition to presenting a research paper I co-wrote with Dr. Elyssebeth Leigh.
Apart from the fact it was a really cool conference, there were also some neat simulators to play with… aviation, mining, manufacturing, transport and so on. Here’s a photo of a helicopter simulator which was on display.
All in all a rewarding experience and one I am looking to repeat in 2011.
Recently I came across a couple of DVD’s which shared my passion for play. Always excited about new views on play, I purchased them from US-based Giant Impact (they were unavailable from within Australia).
Kevin Carroll
Before I ordered them, I had never heard of Kevin Carroll, so I was interested in finding more about him, and his views on play. Carroll is a motivational speaker based in the United States, and has had enourmous success with this book Red Rubber Ball, in which the ball serves as a metaphor for your dreams and goals in life. While primarily catering to a business audience, I found synergy with his views on play and my own. He finds play something powerful and important in life, enabling people to innovate, create, problem solve and analyze. While he does not explicitly speak of mental models, visualization and conceptual thinking, I would appear to exist as an undercurrent to his work. In his DVDs he espouses to his business oriented audience, the potential and true power of play, and engages them to become more playful in life and work.
Both DVDs are mostly excerpts from a live presentation by Carroll to a largely business oriented audience. Carroll’s details the role that play and games has had on his life in quite a powerful way using the red rubber ball in both a real object and metaphor for the pursuit of dreams.
I found these DVDs both valuable and affordable (around US$20 a piece), and useful addition to my library. If you’re interested in purchasing, then contact Giant Impact directly, especially if you live outside of the continental USA so that you can arrange appropriate shipping.
