From the Abstract episode we watched during the class:

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Why “Design For Play” is better than just “Designing Toys” for Cas Holman? What is the difference? Do you agree with this?

How does Cas Holman’s definitions of toy and play align or differ from what you defined last week?

Discuss in the concept of “Play Value” as you understand that term from the movie or other resources (readings, searching online, etc). Analyze your favorite from this point of view. Are there any skills that this toy allowed you to learn when you played with it?

Feel free to post any other thoughts of things that called your attention.

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Response:

Cas prefers the saying of design for play because design for toys share the connotation that has less values and is considered less serious, whereas design for play has less of a result driven expectation. Toys are also more prone to have an intended purpose, but it is designing for play that encourages more people to treat playing toy with an open mindset. I agree with Cas because I believe designing for play will consider and emphasize with more diverse group of users, allowing for more play value of the toy.

Cas defines toy as open-ended play tool that shares high play value. Cas also believes that play is lifetime activity that generates curiosity which is quite different from my definition of “play is pursuing in activities that is considered fun by at least one person.” I think it’s interesting that my definition of play shares more connotation with the idea of “fun” where Cas shares more intention of generating meaning and value. My definition of toy was “toys are sensory objects that stimulates people’s dopamine and help children to better learn the world.” This is kind of similar to Cas, except she mentions more on the aspect of play value.

Cas brought up that a lot of what people do in design is play because design creates circumstances for play interactions to arise. This brings to my understand of “play value” that toys without a dedicated end goal comes with more play value than the ones that has a definite right/wrong result.

I find the part about removing faces and colors when designing toys for kids particularly inspiring because a lot of her design considered the kid’s needs and goals, removing herself from the perspective of an adult. This reminds me to remove my first person judgements when interviewing people for their inputs in the future projects.