How can gamification and play improve conceptual designs for graphics?

3 How to gamify conceptual design?

To gamify conceptual design, you need to identify the goals, the audience, the context, and the resources of your project. Then, you need to select and design the game elements and mechanics that suit your project, such as points, badges, levels, quests, leaderboards, rewards, challenges, rules, and feedback. You can use gamification platforms, such as Kahoot, Classcraft, or Badgeville, to create and manage your gamified design process. You can also use gamification techniques, such as brainstorming games, card sorting games, storyboarding games, or prototyping games, to generate and test ideas.

4 How to play with conceptual design?

To play with conceptual design, you need to adopt a playful attitude, a curious mindset, and a willingness to experiment. You need to embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and serendipity, and avoid premature judgment and evaluation. You need to use playful materials, tools, and methods, such as sketching, collage, Lego, clay, or digital tools, to create and manipulate visual elements. You also need to use playful modes of expression, communication, and feedback, such as storytelling, role-playing, improvisation, or peer review, to share and test ideas.

6 How to balance gamification and play with conceptual design?

Gamification and play are not substitutes for conceptual design, but rather complementary strategies that can enrich and support it. However, they can also have some potential drawbacks and limitations, such as over-reliance on extrinsic rewards and incentives which can undermine intrinsic motivation and autonomy, or over-stimulation or distraction from the design goal which can impair focus and productivity. To balance gamification and play with conceptual design, you need to align game elements and mechanics with the design goals, adapt them to the design stages, tasks, and challenges, evaluate them for effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, integrate them with the design tools, methods, and feedback, and respect the diversity of designers and stakeholders.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?