Playfulness is an important part of design synthesis

Being playful plays an important role during design synthesis. It allows people to think divergently, to come up with new ideas.

As Jon Kolko puts it: "Our ability to be playful—even if only temporarily—is critical to developing new ideas, allowing them to live long enough to engage this pattern switching, and to cultivate even more ideas."

In order for playfulness to have a chance of being there, 2 things must be true:

1. A group of designers is comfortable enough around each other to put forward silly or crazy ideas.
2. The company's culture permits momentary playfulness and doesn't dismiss it as a waste of time.

Point 1 shows why cultivating relationships at work is actually so important and how it has a direct link to coming up with more innovative (playful) ideas.

Playfulness therefore plays a role in the Relationship of design research, synthesis and innovation

Tags: design process

ID: 2021-0709-0856

References:

• Kolko – Exposing the Magic of Design, p. 46-50