Weft Play
Woven in, not stuck on.
Serious products should still feel good to use: rewarding, clear and a little bit delightful.
Weft Play is an invented method for a fictional studio, written for this design concept.
The difference
Points on top, or principles underneath
What we don't do
Gamification
Points, badges and streaks stapled onto an existing product.
What we do
Weft Play
Play woven into the structure of the product, from the first sketch.
What play gives a product
Four things people feel, not four features
Motivation
Give people a reason to come back that is bigger than a notification.
Education
Teach through doing. Good games never make you read the manual.
Advocacy
Make something worth telling a friend about.
Community
Design for people together, not just a person alone with a screen.
Where it comes from
A studio that made a small game to learn
In the story of this fictional studio, the team made a little puzzle game, Hollow Lantern, to understand attention, reward and delight first hand. What they learned became Weft Play, and now shapes work for banks, energy companies and health services.
Hollow Lantern · 2016
One small game
Many serious products
A fictional game from a fictional studio. No awards claimed.