somersaults in the head

Buil­ding, rom­ping, hiding, giving free rein to ide­as, doing somer­saults in our heads: we play­ed as child­ren. And we were hap­py doing it. Espe­ci­al­ly when we play­ed tog­e­ther. We inven­ted new things, flew in our minds to undis­co­ver­ed uni­ver­ses, crea­ted our very own worlds with all our sen­ses. Play­ing con­nec­ted us.

Then we grew up and the serious­ness of life took the place of play. How quick­ly we for­got how important play is – also as an act of free­dom. That this form of arran­ge­ment is valuable and enri­ching and takes us fur­ther. The fact is, playful ele­ments are lin­ked to posi­tively char­ged memo­ries. And posi­ti­ve memo­ries find their way direct­ly into the sub­con­scious. How would it be if play could once again pene­tra­te upwards from the­re, with new rules for our pro­duct and media jungle?

Gami­fi­ca­ti­on is the name given to the trans­fer of game-typi­cal pro­ces­ses and ele­ments into new envi­ron­ments. Rele­vant design will its­elf do somer­saults in the head again and find ways to play online, off­line and bet­ween the line. This beg­ins with cat­chy sym­bols, emo­ti­cons or ani­ma­ti­ons that redu­ce the likeli­hood of aban­don­ment during a shop­ping pro­cess, emo­tio­nal­ly reward the shop­per or con­vey the secu­ri­ty of a pass­word. It con­ti­nues with sur­pri­sing sta­gings, uncon­ven­tio­nal forms and pur­po­seful­ly used mate­ri­als that trans­form archi­tec­tu­re and spaces into sen­su­al worlds. Well imple­men­ted, gami­fi­ca­ti­on is not an annex to exis­ting con­cepts, but may beco­me their very core … becau­se in the end, peo­p­le are only ful­ly human whe­re they play.