Game design is a sibling discipline to software and Web design, but they're siblings that grew up in different houses. They have much more in common than their perceived distinction typically suggests, and user experience practitioners can realize enormous benefit by exploiting the solutions that games have found to the real problems of design. This book will show you how.
Playful Design
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Review
For UX designers eager to go beyond simple points and badges, it s been hard to find resources that truly bridge the worlds of UX and game design. John Ferrara's thorough, thoughtful, and practical book is just what we ve been waiting for. --Jesse James Garrett, Author, The Elements of User Experience
The hype around games and gamification for learning, social change, and impact has hit warp speed. Playful Design is a brilliant beyond-the-hype book that truly sifts the gold from the dross. It is a must read for anyone interested not just in games, but in designing engaging and meaningful human experiences. --James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University, Author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
What can the field of UX learn from game design? To answer this question, John Ferrara examines the underlying mechanics behind some familiar (and less familiar) games. But be prepared, you'll come away with more than a few new tools and ideas added to your design toolbox! --Stephen P. Anderson, Author, Seductive Interaction Design
The hype around games and gamification for learning, social change, and impact has hit warp speed. Playful Design is a brilliant beyond-the-hype book that truly sifts the gold from the dross. It is a must read for anyone interested not just in games, but in designing engaging and meaningful human experiences. --James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University, Author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
What can the field of UX learn from game design? To answer this question, John Ferrara examines the underlying mechanics behind some familiar (and less familiar) games. But be prepared, you'll come away with more than a few new tools and ideas added to your design toolbox! --Stephen P. Anderson, Author, Seductive Interaction Design
The hype around games and gamification for learning, social change, and impact has hit warp speed. Playful Design is a brilliant beyond-the-hype book that truly sifts the gold from the dross. It is a must read for anyone interested not just in games, but in designing engaging and meaningful human experiences. --James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University, Author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
What can the field of UX learn from game design? To answer this question, John Ferrara examines the underlying mechanics behind some familiar (and less familiar) games. But be prepared, you'll come away with more than a few new tools and ideas added to your design toolbox! --Stephen P. Anderson, Author, Seductive Interaction Design
The hype around games and gamification for learning, social change, and impact has hit warp speed. Playful Design is a brilliant beyond-the-hype book that truly sifts the gold from the dross. It is a must read for anyone interested not just in games, but in designing engaging and meaningful human experiences. --James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University, Author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
What can the field of UX learn from game design? To answer this question, John Ferrara examines the underlying mechanics behind some familiar (and less familiar) games. But be prepared, you'll come away with more than a few new tools and ideas added to your design toolbox! --Stephen P. Anderson, Author, Seductive Interaction Design
About the Author
John Ferrara has worked as a user experience practitioner since 1999 and began designing video games in 2001. His nutrition education game Fitter Critters was a top prizewinner in the 2010 Apps for Healthy Kids contest sponsored by Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign, and it is currently being tested in public elementary schools. In 2011 he co-founded Megazoid Games, which focuses on creating mobile, social, and educational player experiences.
John works as an information architect at Vanguard and has done significant work in the past for Unisys and GE. He holds a BA in Communication Arts from Hofstra University and an MA in Communication Studies from West Chester University. He gets really excited about things like search algorithms, human evolution, artificial intelligence, and independent films of the 1990s. He freely admits that he probably plays too many video games, but swears up and down that he's got it under control and can stop at any time. He lives in the Philadelphia area with his beautiful wife and superhero daughter.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is now the second time that this has happened to me with a Rosenfeld Media book: I believe what the content description says, and then end up really disappointed because the book doesn't deliver on the promise at all.
"Playful design" claims that UX professionals can learn from game design to "achieve great things int he real world". However, what John Ferrara delivers is simply a systematic categorisation of different computer game types, and how these game types cater for different audiences, and supposedly achieve different things. In typical UX-book style, this then gets fleshed out with a very large number of examples of various computer games.
Now you will ask: what's so bad about that? Nothing, of course, if you're after learning a little bit more about the various types of computer games out there, and if you're interested in general what computer games want and can achieve.
You won't find much that is useful for UX practitioners though. All the author does is to randomly seed sentences like "As a UX practitioner, you will know that..." or "You will be very familiar with this as a UX professional." Yes, John Ferrara, I am, and I wouldn't mind this, but can you then please continue telling me ways of how I can integrate your 'revelations' into web design?
I guess I should have figured this out before I finished reading: very early in the book, the author quickly dismisses 'gamification' as a misguided idea and not really worth considering, because a game has to be fun and needs to be able to stand on its own. And that is the last time you hear in this book about the idea of taking game elements and using them for different purposes.
If you're after a book that introduces you into the profession of computer game design, and the various game classifications and genres, this is a good book to start, but if you're a UX practitioner like me who just wanted to find a few tips and tricks for using game elements to enhance the stickiness of a site, without developing a full-blown game, then you'll be sorely disappointed.
"Playful design" claims that UX professionals can learn from game design to "achieve great things int he real world". However, what John Ferrara delivers is simply a systematic categorisation of different computer game types, and how these game types cater for different audiences, and supposedly achieve different things. In typical UX-book style, this then gets fleshed out with a very large number of examples of various computer games.
Now you will ask: what's so bad about that? Nothing, of course, if you're after learning a little bit more about the various types of computer games out there, and if you're interested in general what computer games want and can achieve.
You won't find much that is useful for UX practitioners though. All the author does is to randomly seed sentences like "As a UX practitioner, you will know that..." or "You will be very familiar with this as a UX professional." Yes, John Ferrara, I am, and I wouldn't mind this, but can you then please continue telling me ways of how I can integrate your 'revelations' into web design?
I guess I should have figured this out before I finished reading: very early in the book, the author quickly dismisses 'gamification' as a misguided idea and not really worth considering, because a game has to be fun and needs to be able to stand on its own. And that is the last time you hear in this book about the idea of taking game elements and using them for different purposes.
If you're after a book that introduces you into the profession of computer game design, and the various game classifications and genres, this is a good book to start, but if you're a UX practitioner like me who just wanted to find a few tips and tricks for using game elements to enhance the stickiness of a site, without developing a full-blown game, then you'll be sorely disappointed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Playful design is good, but not focused on business application of gaming techniques
July 16, 2012
By C. Bess
Format:Paperback
This book is good overview of the design issues of games and gameplay. I was looking for a book focused on the application of game techniques in business and this is definitely not that book.
Playful Design does a great job covering the foundational issues of game design, but it is in the context of traditional gaming. The book is written from the perspective of maximizing the player's experience playing the game and discusses the various reasons people come back for more.
The book is definitely worth reading as background material. It will help expand your view about how gaming can be applied effectively, since it covers a varied range of implementations over the history of gaming.
Playful Design does a great job covering the foundational issues of game design, but it is in the context of traditional gaming. The book is written from the perspective of maximizing the player's experience playing the game and discusses the various reasons people come back for more.
The book is definitely worth reading as background material. It will help expand your view about how gaming can be applied effectively, since it covers a varied range of implementations over the history of gaming.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Matthew
Format:Paperback
"I love books". My girlfriend is glad that I have switched to eBooks as my collection of work related books is starting to get the upper-hand in our bookcases. Since last week, I have added another book to my e-collection, John Ferrara's Playful Design.
John's goal with his book is, as he states in the introduction `to let UX designers adopt game design as a competency that they can enlist' but he still says that the book is also for anyone who wants to learn more about how games can achieve great things in the real world.
Game design, gamification, aren't these two peas in a pod? Well, not exactly. Sunni Brown, who co-authored Gamestorming, tells in her foreword that their needs to be a clear distinction among UX designers between the two. Between the `all lipstick and no sex' and the `compelling game design that ignites our systems of pleasure'. From basic Likes to point systems, UX designers need to be able to create seductive user experiences with feedback loops and small, surmountable obstacles.
According to John, games solve real problems. Games have effect, both positive and negative, if meant for a serious purpose or as a leisurely time filler. From gambling to games that help improve social awareness, donations to charity, games can educate at levels that keep players engaged. In other words, games are not only for action and not only for learning, the direction you take your game design is only limited by your personal drive for creativity and how you imagine it to effect human behavior.
In Playful Design, the metaphor is made that UX design and Video Game design are like siblings that were raised in separate homes. For the `past' this was definitely the case, but the author (and I think anyone who surfs the web regularly) can agree that this is no longer so. There is a clear overlap starting to emerge with respect to both fields of expertise. Both sides are starting to learn from each other, where John states that `UX design creates experiences that help people meet their real-world needs, whereas game design is about the experience, for the sake of the experience'. With current developments, practitioners on both side of the spectrum will come to see both fields as fundamentally related as best practices afford successful new approaches to design.
Reading the book was definitely worth my time, even if I am not a UX designer myself. Many of the topics covered were very new to myself and have really served as an eye-opener. John Ferrara helped me discover how everyday websites, serious and more leisurely, can literally contain game elements to make the use of it by visitors very pleasurable. It is down to the UX designer to make these websites playful and help enhance the overall user experience, this book is in my opinion a great place to start learning about the subject or tweak what you already know.
John's goal with his book is, as he states in the introduction `to let UX designers adopt game design as a competency that they can enlist' but he still says that the book is also for anyone who wants to learn more about how games can achieve great things in the real world.
Game design, gamification, aren't these two peas in a pod? Well, not exactly. Sunni Brown, who co-authored Gamestorming, tells in her foreword that their needs to be a clear distinction among UX designers between the two. Between the `all lipstick and no sex' and the `compelling game design that ignites our systems of pleasure'. From basic Likes to point systems, UX designers need to be able to create seductive user experiences with feedback loops and small, surmountable obstacles.
According to John, games solve real problems. Games have effect, both positive and negative, if meant for a serious purpose or as a leisurely time filler. From gambling to games that help improve social awareness, donations to charity, games can educate at levels that keep players engaged. In other words, games are not only for action and not only for learning, the direction you take your game design is only limited by your personal drive for creativity and how you imagine it to effect human behavior.
In Playful Design, the metaphor is made that UX design and Video Game design are like siblings that were raised in separate homes. For the `past' this was definitely the case, but the author (and I think anyone who surfs the web regularly) can agree that this is no longer so. There is a clear overlap starting to emerge with respect to both fields of expertise. Both sides are starting to learn from each other, where John states that `UX design creates experiences that help people meet their real-world needs, whereas game design is about the experience, for the sake of the experience'. With current developments, practitioners on both side of the spectrum will come to see both fields as fundamentally related as best practices afford successful new approaches to design.
Reading the book was definitely worth my time, even if I am not a UX designer myself. Many of the topics covered were very new to myself and have really served as an eye-opener. John Ferrara helped me discover how everyday websites, serious and more leisurely, can literally contain game elements to make the use of it by visitors very pleasurable. It is down to the UX designer to make these websites playful and help enhance the overall user experience, this book is in my opinion a great place to start learning about the subject or tweak what you already know.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a book that unpacks the true core of playful design (with no...
John Ferrara's latest book "Playful Design" fills an important gap in the literature on good game design. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jason A Fox
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delightfully entertaining and informative read!
I'm not going to mince words, this book is awesome. I typically read a book on UX or broad Design once a week and this is the best i've read in a long while. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Richard Dalton
