Guidelines to Design Interactive Open-Ended Play Installations for Children Placed in a Free Play Environment

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
The study of open-ended play centred on SmartGoals, a sensor-equipped, light-responsive mobile play installation of six goals, tested with 50 primary school children aged 9 to 12 across five gym sessions alongside Nintendo Wii, Swinx, and CosmicCatch installations.
02
Goal placement and presentation strongly shaped creativity: football-framed introductions produced football-only games, and aggression-prone objects had to be replaced with smaller, lighter ones.
03
Analysis of twelve observations yielded seven design guidelines, emphasising clearly communicated action possibilities (mobile and fixed modes), feedback and feed-forward on interaction, rewards for coordinated multi-player actions, object-to-object influence, and ambiguous abstract design.
04
Static, predefined objects and a fixed number of modules were associated with repetitive, low-engagement play, whereas social interaction, predefined stages or rules, and ambiguity increased competition, enjoyment, and sustained participation.
05
The findings derive from data gathered via video recordings, observations, and questionnaires, but come from a single installation, so the authors caution they must be validated across other open-ended play systems before broader application.

Summary

This document examines how children use SmartGoals, a mobile, sensor-equipped open-ended play installation, when it is placed in a free play environment alongside three predefined-rule installations: Nintendo Wii, Swinx, and CosmicCatch. Its central aim is to derive design guidelines for open-ended play, a form of play in which children set their own rules and goals and which the authors argue has been understudied, particularly in settings where installations sit among ordinary play facilities rather than in isolation. The SmartGoals prototype, a set of six light-responsive goals originally conceived as football training tools, serves as the test platform.

The study involved 50 primary school children aged 9 to 12 across five gym sessions, with data drawn from video recordings, observations, and questionnaires. Pilot work revealed that goal placement and presentation strongly shaped creativity: football-framed introductions produced football-only games, and aggression-prone objects were replaced with smaller, lighter ones. Analysis of twelve observations yielded seven design guidelines, which emphasize clearly communicated action possibilities including mobile and fixed modes, feedback and feed-forward on interaction, rewards for coordinated multi-player actions, object-to-object influence, and ambiguous abstract design. Static, predefined objects and a fixed number of modules were associated with repetitive, low-engagement play, whereas social interaction, predefined stages or rules, and ambiguity increased competition, enjoyment, and sustained participation. The authors acknowledge that these conclusions derive from a single installation and require validation across other open-ended play systems before broader application.