turntable / as the table turns

I’ve always drawn inspiration from game design – it’s an obvious way to make interactive experiences that people enjoy.

For the inaugural Wellington Web Meetup I did a presentation on how game mechanics and the human need to play can be applied to interaction design to transform tasks that are painful and dull into experiences that are fun and addictive.

Here are some more great materials I’ve been collecting on the subject…

• My blog posts on the topic of games
• Other people’s slides on the topic of games and interaction design
• My bookmarks relating to game design

As a present for the kids for Xmas I came up with this idea to create a pinball machine. I wanted them to be able to design their own ramps, tunnels and traps and the boys LOVE their Lego.

I’m no builder (quite the opposite) but I found this incredibly easy to build. And it’s incredibly fun to design, play and perfect.

Watch this video of the physics game software Phun (then go download Phun and have a blast playing with it!!).

Also, check out this video showing Crayon Physics.

And Crayon Physics for the iPhone.

You can install Crayon Physics for iPhone by adding http://iphone.r4m0n.net/repos as a source to Installer.app.

Finally, have a look at Moovl. It’s in Java, which I refuse to install, but the intro video provides a good overview of the concept.

Doesn’t it inspire you to dream up cool possibilities for games and learning tools?! Have you seen other games or apps that you find completely fun and inspiring?

It’s been my mission with Xero to make the user experience a bit like a game. Money essentially is a game. It represents your score, your points and your power in the game of life. Yet, for most people managing money is a painful chore that is dreaded and avoided.

The latest update to Xero includes new functionality and design ideas that really begin to exhibit what I see as a game play experience. For instance, we’ve designed the bank reconciliation so that it’s fun to use, it’s an experience you actually enjoy and look forward to.

With the bank rec in Xero your job is to match transactions coming in from the bank with transactions you have recorded in Xero. Often Xero can predict the match for you, so with one click you can easily clear a row. You get a big green tick and away it fades, bringing up the next line – the next little piece of the puzzle – to be matched. It’s a bit like clearing rows in Tetris (as seen in the short video above).

Our new ‘fast code’ design lets you do it even quicker, by letting you create an instant match, on-the-fly. After that, Xero learns how you code your transactions so that the next time it already has the details filled in for you. Pretty soon all you do is: click, click, click down the page and you’ve cleared away a whole bunch of rows, knocking them off in rapid fire.

It gives you a real rush of instant gratification.

When you come across a transaction that reconciles to multiple items you go into “find and match” mode, tracking down the transactions that add up to the one bank statement line. It’s another type of simple puzzle that gives you an immediate sense of satisfaction when you find the exact match.

With Xero, we’re now getting into a phase of the product design and development where we can really start to optimise the work flow across the system to make the experience smarter, faster and genuinely fun.

I love seeing it all come together. It’s even better to see how much customers are loving it.

I’ve been a vocal critic of the Best Awards. When it comes to web design they require entries to be submitted on paper boards which is how they are judged. Unreal. The results have always been completely off the mark.

Well, maybe things have changed this year. For The Masses and Cameron Charles out this year’s winners (because the Best site is down…ay yi yi). It looks like Best have finally gotten it right, showcasing some extremely high caliber web design work. Go NZ!

• Electrocity – A really cute, fun, smart, NZ-ified version of Sim City. Also check out the design of this related site School Gen
• Munuit website – Great band with a super cute, playful, dynamic interface. Inspired by Katamari and Loco Roco
• Radio New Zealand – Great content, made easily accessible through solid information design and elegant visual design
• OBO hockey gear – Refreshingly fun design for a fun looking product
• ACC Sports websites – A web tool for helping you keep fit and healthy
• Action This – (Not featured on Best, but announced today) A project management web app that was just (pre)launched

I have 2 kids (Emory 7.5 and Jasper 3.5) who are both going to our local Montessori school. I have always felt strongly that the standard school system sucks. I’ve always had a desire to help reshape formal education, to create a better experience focused on: inquisitive thinking, creativity, collaboration, discovery, and following your passion.

No worksheets, no tests, no lectures, no classrooms, no homework.

It turns out, Montessori is what I’ve been after.

We went to a parent night where they showed us some of the materials the kids are currently using and learning. It was incredible. I was so jealous. I wanted to take my 7 year old’s class!!! The things he’s learning are concepts that I’ve only just barely discovered myself after re-reading Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. I went home and talked to Emory about it and I could see how much he’s absorbing: stong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, dark matter, supernovas, on and on. The learning he’s experiencing is not the type that’s only good for passing tests. He gets it, probably not all of it entirely, but he gets the big important ideas. Meanwhile, he’s enjoying it, really loving it, and because of that a lot more is actually sticking and getting processed in a meaningful way.

The following night we watched a video that outlines the major differences between Montessori and traditional schooling. (I’m happy to lend out my copy if you’re interested in watching it)

At first, it comes off like a cheesy corporate training video. But the content blew my mind.

I came to the profound and stark realization that sending your kid to a traditional school is like giving your kid a lobotomy and throwing them in a torture chamber. If they come out fine, it’s in spite of the education they were given. That’s how I felt about school when I was in it. Now I just wish I saw that video about 2 years ago (and I wish my parents saw it 30 years ago). Our older son Emory went to Montessori pre-school. It was awesome. Then when he was 6 we decided that he should go to the local school: it’s a block away, it had a great reputation, we were unsure whether the Montessori primary school would provide enough “grounding”. Ugh. In some ways it was a necessary and important way for us to learn that even at a “good” school in a country with a good reputation for their education system is just the same old bullshit: worksheets, tests, and catering to the lowest common denominator. It’s just as backwards as everywhere else. After eighteen months of standard schooling, we switched Emory back to Montessori and we are ecstatic.

While watching the Montessori video, I realized how directly related the principles are to interaction design, the web, social networking, and open platforms. Fundamentally, Montessori is a well designed platform that uses the same underlying techniques as our best digital platforms:

• object oriented architecture
• peer networking
• multi-sensory inputs and outputs
• parallel processing
• iterative and agile development
• progressive disclosure and perceived affordances

Best of all, the Montessori platform provides so many beautifully simple, highly imaginative, fun materials to help people (kids and adults alike) enjoy the learning process so that it is an extremely powerful and meaningful experience.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Montessori I highly recommend that you watch the video, read this article and others like it, read this FAQ and go observe a Montessori class.

This past week I went in and spent a couple hours with Emory’s class. I had a lot of fun making this simple little digital story together with the kids. I can’t wait to do it again!

This is a really quick-to-consume presentation from this year’s SXSW. It views Las Vegas as the ultimate user experience design case study.

It also makes some really poignant comparisons between Vegas and MySpace, then weighing that up against design elitism. I get it, but I’m still a design snob (I know you wouldn’t know that looking at this blog). I’ve been to Vegas once in my life and I’ve promised myself that I will never ever go there again. I don’t feel quite as strongly about MySpace. They may have their place in this world, but personally I don’t want to have any part of it. Having said that, I don’t mind learning some lessons from their success.

In particular, this bit on slot machines has some great insights on designing game play experiences and giving people instant gratification…

Going down to the microlevel, let’s examine slot machines. A well-designed model can bring in $1b
year! Slot machines gross more every year than McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Starbucks.
Combined! Players typically initiate a game every six seconds!
- designed for a specific audience: women over 55 with disposable income
- many small, positive reinforcements and constant feedback. Gives out a variety of rewards: small
pays, medium pays, and huge jackpots
- infrequent random reinforcement or intermittent reward
- built on a flexible platform, games and winner/loser ratios can always be tweaked
- every detail is carefully created. there is even a sweetener to the sound of money falling. some
machines have up to 400 different sound events
- lettering is such that even the legally blind can play

I’m no hardcore gamer. That said, I do love a good video game. As a lad, I certainly spent a fair few quarters and hours at the arcade. I’ve even had a few game systems over the years.

Emory and I are currently playing our way through Lego Star Wars II. We’ve been eagerly awaiting the game, ever since completing Lego Star Wars I, last year. It’s easily one of the best games I’ve ever played.

What’s so great about Lego Star Wars? And what can an interaction designer learn from the game?

• Drop-in / drop-out co-op. This ought to be a required feature for all games. When two people are playing together their characters must combine abilities and coordinate movements to solve problems and access new areas. That level of cooperation is fun and clever. Better still, either one of the players can casually drop-in or drop-out of the game at any time – there is no frustration, absolutely no interruption of game play. It’s absurd that no other game offers that functionality.

UX Lessons: There are important advantages to collaboration, but it should always be easy and painless to participate, or not participate, whenever you want.

• Character switching. The game provides great replay value since you have to complete every level several times, in different ways, with different characters. This may sound dull – it’s anything but. You can switch between a range of different characters, on the fly. In fact, in order to access different areas and solve puzzles you need to switch characters, using each of the different characters’ different abilities when and where appropriate.

UX Lessons: Different roles have different strengths, cater to those strengths when and where appropriate.

• Flying and driving. In the new game, the flying experience is really thrilling, intense, and varied.

UX Lessons: Being in the driver’s seat is fun and powerful.

• Comic book experience. The beauty of playing Star Wars as Lego pieces is that it has a comic book quality. Instead of judging the realism, you simply enjoy the play. It’s a true comic book adventure. That’s far more in tune with the spirit of the original movies than any other Star Wars game ever produced before. Most games fall into the age old trap of focusing on special effects, at the expense of the story.

UX Lessons: Spirit and personality are way more important than looks.

• The environments are rich in depth and texture. Despite the relatively blocky and crude Lego character graphics, the environments have layers of depth and texture that make it really compelling to explore. The fact that they’re familiar from the movies also makes it special and fun. You feel like you’re living in a movie or a dream.

UX Lessons: Looks do matter – symbolism, familiarity, and visual texture give an experience deep resonance.

• It’s easy, but the trick is learning to make connections. It’s always pretty obvious when there’s something you need to do or find. There are a variety of visual and audio cues attracting your attention and prompting your reaction. The trick is to learn the meaning behind the clues. You need to know when and how to apply your different character abilities, partially based on your previous experiences, and partially based on your imagination. It’s most fun when you have to use your imagination to solve a problem.

UX Lessons: You can lead a horse to water, but people eventually have to apply their own creativity and imagination. Find ways to support and encourage creativity.

• The essence of wit. There is cheeky humor spun throughout the game. The cut scenes are clever and silly. And all of the characters do an occasional silly maneuver or have a goofy pratfall. It’s really cute and endearing, sometimes hilarious.

UX Lessons: There is soul behind a smile – giving people something to smile about builds trust and compassion.

If you want some more evidence of the passion that the game inspires, just read some passages from Emory’s school journal.