Adding Fun part 1

Preface, first draft How does one write a book anyhow? I have no idea, I’ve tried it before but I’ve never gotten past the first 20 or so pages and my narrative arcs are just crap. But this is different, I hope, this is a book without dramatic narrative. In fact, this is a book about design. And I can’t be more passionate about a subject (after all, sex is an activity).

Design was for a long time the process to get things to work, engineering design, or the process to make something aesthetically beautiful, artistic design. But today these fields are merging and are joined by the less respected but at least as important field of human interaction design, the process of designing things so that they work with humans attached at some point or end. Basically making sure someone can use the damned thing.

This is where I come in. Engineering design I leave to the engineers, aesthetic design I leave to the people that can draw. But designing for humans has become my calling and I will in these series of articles or possibly book-to-be define and teach you about my theory for adding fun to any product.

I will use a lot of practical examples from a variety of products but will center mostly around games. As they are the most obvious products that need to add fun.

Next up: a short brief on Raph Koster’s Excellent: A Theory of Fun which explains the beginning of what fun is.