Co-Creation using the game Our Move
Building co-creation in the process – A board game method that visualizes issues, creates dialogue and insights.
BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP
MDH Living Lab consist of a collaboration between the university, external organizations and society. Through interdisciplinary work we conduct research that involves users (primarily within organizations) in various stages of design and innovation processes. Together we define problems, realize and evaluate, in iterative loops. Co-creation is a skill that has to be learned and developed, therefor we use the board game Our Move, developed by artist and Lecturer Andrea Hvistendahl, that is designed for dialogue, reflection and problem solving. It was originally commissioned for a series of participatory exhibitions in Sweden, and has also been used in conflict management workshops in Iraq & Syria.
“The key idea of this art-piece [Our Move] is to stimulate the players to reflect on [–] group association in different situations or scenarios.”
Florin U. et al. (2016), Collaboration for the Improvement of Tolerance: Artistic Practice in a Societal Context, Intern. Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in The Arts.
MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE
The aim of this workshop is to elucidate and problematize the process of co-creation.
Our Move is used to:
- explore different roles that could occur in co-creation
- make issues more concrete by showing the different steps in the process
- visually map out complex systems and structures
- build prerequisites to solve problems
- involve and create understanding for different users and stakeholders
- create dialogue and trust
At MDH Our Move is used in educational settings. When building a co-creation project, rolls can be unclear, which can hinder the full potential of co-creation. This concerns in particular undergraduate student projects. MDH Living Lab has therefor initiated a strategy that all students should have theoretical and practical knowledge in co-creation.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
The participants will gain insights in the potential of co-creation on multiple levels as well as insights on the chosen topic. The process visualises the roles of and relationships between different stakeholder and their competences.
In the game the participants are able to visualize different steps in a process, facilitating the possibilities to identify, examine, and understand the benefit of different experiences and how they relate to each other. Our Move offers space for different types of knowledge, experience and emotions to come into play in co-creation projects, as well as displays the participants’ shared knowledge.
The workshop will invite the participant to challenge their understanding of co-creation and to reflect on possibilities and obstacles on individual and collective levels.
BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY
Our Move is a Serious Game. In this workshop the game is played in smaller groups in parallel with guidance and reflection. The participants decide on the relevant stakeholders for the chosen topic. They then “hands-on” place / build and map out the situation with a number of different symbolic pawns/pieces across the game board. The participants need to agree on how each piece is to be placed. Our Move encourages in this way the different participants to explain how they individually interpret the meaning and combination of the different symbolic pawns which results in creative dialogues and breaks down the bigger issue into many small steps to examine.
The process visualises the different resources, shortcomings and relationships of the different chosen stakeholders and displays the participants’ shared knowledge. The design has an openness that is less definite than words, (there is no definite right or wrong) but at the same time it can be more accurate and provide space for multiple layers and truths, as in reality. Additionally, each completed board game is a unique piece of art of a sort.
Workshop Facilitators
Yvonne Eriksson
Professor
Yvonne Eriksson
ProfessorYvonne Eriksson (PhD) is Professor in Information Design, leader of MDH Living Lab at Innovation and Product Realization (IPR) and Vice Dean of the School of Innovation, Design and Engineering at Mälardalen Univeristy. The main focus of her research is visual communication and its relation to the perceptual/cognitive processes that are involved in interpretation of visuals and building of milieus. She has special interest in methodology and development of methods for design and co-creation.