First draft of the notes of a talk I will give at Better Software 2012 http://www.bettersoftware.it/

1. Engagement
by
Design
Pietro Polsinelli
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2. To get to “engaging” (ITA avvincenti) we have to ask about the user. UX design is understanding
people – not by example. You won’t go anywhere by just hacking code.
UI and UX are more a theme for psychology & anthropology than software engineering.

3. the flow
The blurry edge between challenging and too difficoult.
There is the flow. We are tackling the tip of something complex. When we are
kept at the margin of our abilities – it’s the flow graph. So its complex,
there are exceptions everywhere.

4. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Author)

5. New user models.

6. UI design starting
from the user -
examples

7. Starting point is an antropological question.

8. How can I talk about WW2 to today’s hurried reader? [image of Churchill autobiography] Twitter
stories

9. Twitter stories to movies
Social software for story composition.

10. Gabriele Farina from aLittleb.it (Milan)

11. Why
games can
teach
about UI?

12. Classical game
design intro

13. Game
“mechanics”?
Crash course in game design.

14. Gamification of routine work does not make sense because we want surprises, new patterns in
games
A game is about loops -> mostly primitive ones

15. Drawing with your figer on the iPad is nice. Racing with small cars is beautiful [polistil?]

16. Considers shape, speed. Also runtime “turbo” interventions. You don’t drive – which simplifies
development, but is a plus here, not a minus.

17. “This game is engaging”
Engagement can be caused by disparate reasons:
1. Engagement because of s fun base mechanic
2. Engagement by using a virtual world projection mechanics
Engaging design is ambiguous: can mean engaging by using a base mechanic (flipper tower
defence, verify the chapter in theory of fun), or by using a virtual world projection mechanics

18. Koster – Deterding definition of fun.

19. Learn more on Classical Game Design
Game mechanics is a field of its own, as is the litterature on engagement. Ho selezionato I
riferimenti per qualità, non per popolarità. My friend Sebastian Deterding
In the infoberg give references by theme: fun -> fun bookGamification deterding (again takeaway
clearing ambiguities), amyUser models: kahnemanVirtual: lehdonGame mechanics: schell, fun,
what

20. Enchant and
dispell

22. [which is the reference? Check licrize?]
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23. Playfication

24. Oh how nice it is to work as a
slave for this multinational
http://unmanned.molleindustria.org/
Monday, August 27, 2012

25. Conflict of interests
“This Bat Man game feels like busywork” -> bad game. Games’destiny is to be mastered and
become boring, surprises ended. [redraw with differences: n surprises iteration]
Monday, August 27, 2012