Designing for play and playful experiences has been a central theme at Mobile Life since its start, and is integrated in several of the projects in the centre. This project serves to further integrate the research in the centre around a shared discourse on playful experiences. The result is a book named Plei-Plei presented together with a rich on-line material in the website: www.playfulness.info As playfulness was a central theme not only for the researchers in the Mobile Life centre, but a key ingredient in some of the work at Nokia, Ericsson and Microsoft, it became urgent to gather a lot of the research performed in this area. The book brings out a diverse set of ideas, methods, tools and ways of seeing playfulness.

Studies of playful practices - In the section that introduces studies of playfulness as it occurs in practices in the world, we present a whole range of playful activities, ranging from carefully crafted and well-organised practices to the propensity to have fun with whatever is offered – the mere play. Organised practices for pleasure may include hunting, going to a sports bar, or taking a horseback-riding lesson. ‘Mere play’ was found in e.g. studies of users who got a mobile for the first time.

We launched the book and website during summer 2012. Our hope is that designers will carry it in their handbags, scribbling in it when inspired, and that the book will encourage the interdisciplinary field of interaction design will articulate and engage with playfulness in all the different ways outlines in the book.

More information and a sneek peek can be found at plei-plei.info