A study in play, pleasure and interaction design

Abstract

This paper focuses on the design of pleasurably playful interfaces within an interactive art context. It describes the development of a framework of thirteen pleasures of play and outlines the application of this framework during the design process of three interactive artworks. These processes included both initial conceptual development stages and later user evaluation studies. The paper compares the artist's view of the pleasures that might be experienced in each work with the actual pleasures experienced by users during evaluation sessions. The results suggest that the pleasure framework is a useful tool to aid in the design of playful interfaces.

It would be a Pleasure: Augmented Reality and Engagement in a Heritage Context

“…It is the research of Brigid Costello and Ernest Edmonds that offers a methodology for assessing the experiential engagement with interactive artworks (Costello & Edmonds 2007, Costello & Edmonds 2009). In these papers the authors seek to break down both pleasure and play into its constitutive parts; situating a range of experiences, such as creation, exploration, discovery and difficulty as building blocks by which pleasure can be elicited.…”

Exploring Social Interaction With a Tangible Music Interface

“…The active relationship between audience and exhibits, creative audience engagement, has been investigated in interactive art (Costello and Edmonds, 2007;Edmonds et al, 2006). In interactive art, a range of levels of audience's control of the system's behaviour is possible, from controlled and predictable, to unpredictable behaviours, depending on the system's design (Edmonds et al, 2006).…”

“…In interactive art, a range of levels of audience's control of the system's behaviour is possible, from controlled and predictable, to unpredictable behaviours, depending on the system's design (Edmonds et al, 2006). Stimulating playful audience behaviour has been researched as a mechanism for increasing audience engagement (Costello and Edmonds, 2007). The Reactable can be seen as an interactive artwork, with a high level of audience engagement because the audience can control the system's reaction.…”

Envisioning Future Playful Interactive Environments for Animals

“…According to (Csikszentmihalyi 1975;Costello and Edmonds 2007), the pleasures of play should be studied by considering multiple categories related to Creation, Exploration, Discovery, Difficulty, Competition, Danger, Captivation, Sensation, Sympathy, Simulation, Fantasy, Camaraderie and Subversion. However, these constituent elements of playful experiences that apply to humans may not be applicable to other species.…”