Very interesting read, regarding sort of a mix between video game design and 3d environmental design, huhu have fun!
IKEA, and the logic of videogame design
By Daniel Golding
A visit to IKEA usually means house moving, renovating, and too much fun spent with LEGO for grown-ups. But is there an element of videogame design hidden away within the Swedish minimalism?
I never went to IKEA for videogames.
I went there for Swedish pillow covers.
But somehow I ended up with videogames. Not literally – though the day the Nordic furniture giant designs a game is a day I’ll be first in line to buy it. No, after traipsing around the gigantic, fulfil-every-homeware-need store a short drive from my home, I came to videogames through my own imagination, through IKEAs design philosophy, and through a quote emblazoned at the store’s entrance.
“Design Intelligence,” it read, “when the function is part of the design”.
Anyone familiar with the influence of Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things on videogame design will instantly draw the connection. Norman’s book espouses a simple philosophy: that an object’s function should be easily grasped through the implementation of good design. Many objects are poorly designed and therefore more difficult to use. If you can’t open a door on first attempt, it’s probably bad design, rather than your fault. Can’t use a toaster? It’s the toaster’s fault, not yours.
The videogame link is simple. Games are inherently functional devices also, therefore players should be able to simply and easily grasp the various functions of user interface, of level design, and of in-game objects. Over at PopMatters, L.B. Jefferies wrote a good summary of Norman’s text and its application to games, while in discussing Portal’s design, Kim Swift and Eric Wolpaw essentially paraphrased Norman in every interview. Take this one, given at GDC 08, where Wolpaw takes responsibility for the interviewer (Brandon Sheffield) being unaware he had to click to respawn after dying: “No, again, it’s playtesting. We failed you.”
So how does this all apply to IKEA?
Well, most obviously, it applies to IKEA’s product design. Mostly, IKEA’s products are simple, and design-wise, to-the-point. They are unadorned with excesses, and generally speaking communicate their function clearly and efficiently. An IKEA rocking chair shows you how it rocks. An IKEA drawer illustrates its opening path plainly. Even space-saving eyesores, like this table set, allow users to instinctively visualise how it works before trying it.
It goes further than that, though.
The design of an IKEA store itself is a lesson in functional design, and a lesson in videogame design. The following image is a map of the showroom floor at my local IKEA. What does it look like to you?
To me, it looks like an early prototype for a level of a videogame.
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[via gonintendo.com]
