5. Getting Serious About Play

Today’s adult must possess the skill for play in order to perform meaningful interactions with the technology of everyday life—making a withdrawal from an ATM, initiating an email message, making a cell phone call. In this sense, we play every day, unbeknownst to us.

How the Information Age Relies on Play

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.

—Carl Jung

To create a compelling experience with products and technology, we must look at a new conceptual model—one that places play behavior at the core of the creation of experiences and products. Indeed, two books—Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga’s 1938 study of play among Europeans, and anthropologist ...

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