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Play With Us!

Interactive table prototype

• in: Hirameki Design x Finland, Tokyo
• by: Tuomo Tammenpää / Yatta Oy
• for: Yatta Oy / Design Forum Finland
• in 2010

“Play With Us!” -concepting prototype is an interactive table with a playful interface for demonstrating the benefits of diverse competences in concept design practice. Different competencies (eg Architect, Service Designer, Psychologist, Copywriter etc) are presented in form of playful character objects. Each character represents years of expertise in that specific field. These “Skill-characters” can be played on the interactive table. The table is embedded with a touchscreen and two reactive areas, one for “PRODUCT” and the other for “SERVICE”. The characters are embedded with RFID tags.

By moving the YATTA skill-character on one of the reactive areas, thought-provoking questions are presented to the player from the point of view of that specific expertise. For example, if the player has a service, let’s say bike rental start-up, he/she can engage with conversation of all YATTA experts by bringing the characters to the SERVICE area. A YATTA Art Director character might ask “Could one picture explain the whole service?” or Strategist might ask “Are you using foresight mapping?” etc. In this manner the player starts the conversation with our experts virtually in order to improve his/her product or service and gradually understands, why wide diversity in expertise is very beneficial in concepting practice. And since he/she is playing with just characters, the personalities of the real people are reduced to representations of skills, making it easier to really play with us.