"Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method

Giovanni M. Troiano; Matthew Wood; Mustafa Feyyaz Sonbudak; Riddhi Chandan Padte; Casper Harteveld

doi:10.1145/3461778.3462069

"Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method

Giovanni M. Troiano, Matthew Wood, Mustafa Feyyaz Sonbudak, Riddhi Chandan Padte, Casper Harteveld

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

COVID-19 has heavily impacted our lives. To date, the ongoing pandemic continues to cause dramatic societal changes and raises shared sentiments of uncertainty for our future. As such, however, COVID-19 provides opportunities to explore futures through speculative research. Here, we gamify the story completion method (SCM) to explore futures post-COVID and ask 37 participants to play a day in the life of Sal in a post-COVID future. The game asks participants to describe what Sal sees, hears, or does throughout a day based on multiple story stems. Our analysis reveals narratives of post-COVID futures as business as usual, back to basics, or everyday chaos. Notably, these narratives raise concerns about privacy loss and increased militarization, but also envision futures post-COVID that reclaim stronger bond with nature and family. We discuss the lessons learned from gamifying the SCM and the temporal implications of performing speculative research during evolving dramatic events.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
Subtitle of host publication	Nowhere and Everywhere
Editors	Wendy Ju, Lora Oehlberg, Sean Follmer, Sarah Fox, Stacey Kuznetsov
Publisher	ACM
Pages	48-63
Number of pages	16
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450384766
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462069
Publication status	Published - 28 Jun 2021
Externally published	Yes
Event	2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021: “Nowhere and Everywhere” - Virtual, Online, United States Duration: 28 Jun 2021 → 2 Jul 2021 https://dis.acm.org/2021/

Conference

Conference	2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021
Abbreviated title	DIS2021
Country/Territory	United States
City	Virtual, Online
Period	28/06/21 → 2/07/21
Internet address	https://dis.acm.org/2021/

Keywords

COVID-19
design fiction
game design
gamification
research fiction
speculative design
speculative research
story completion method
uncertainty

Access to Document

10.1145/3461778.3462069

Cite this

Troiano, G. M., Wood, M., Sonbudak, M. F., Padte, R. C., & Harteveld, C. (2021). "Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method. In W. Ju, L. Oehlberg, S. Follmer, S. Fox, & S. Kuznetsov (Eds.), DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere (pp. 48-63). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462069

Troiano, Giovanni M. ; Wood, Matthew ; Sonbudak, Mustafa Feyyaz et al. / "Are We Now Post-COVID?" : Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method. DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere. editor / Wendy Ju ; Lora Oehlberg ; Sean Follmer ; Sarah Fox ; Stacey Kuznetsov. ACM, 2021. pp. 48-63

@inproceedings{248d072e132f4421a93b36f7554411eb,

title = "{"}Are We Now Post-COVID?{"}: Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method",

abstract = "COVID-19 has heavily impacted our lives. To date, the ongoing pandemic continues to cause dramatic societal changes and raises shared sentiments of uncertainty for our future. As such, however, COVID-19 provides opportunities to explore futures through speculative research. Here, we gamify the story completion method (SCM) to explore futures post-COVID and ask 37 participants to play a day in the life of Sal in a post-COVID future. The game asks participants to describe what Sal sees, hears, or does throughout a day based on multiple story stems. Our analysis reveals narratives of post-COVID futures as business as usual, back to basics, or everyday chaos. Notably, these narratives raise concerns about privacy loss and increased militarization, but also envision futures post-COVID that reclaim stronger bond with nature and family. We discuss the lessons learned from gamifying the SCM and the temporal implications of performing speculative research during evolving dramatic events.",

keywords = "COVID-19, design fiction, game design, gamification, research fiction, speculative design, speculative research, story completion method, uncertainty",

author = "Troiano, \{Giovanni M.\} and Matthew Wood and Sonbudak, \{Mustafa Feyyaz\} and Padte, \{Riddhi Chandan\} and Casper Harteveld",

year = "2021",

month = jun,

day = "28",

doi = "10.1145/3461778.3462069",

language = "English",

pages = "48--63",

editor = "Wendy Ju and Lora Oehlberg and Sean Follmer and Sarah Fox and Stacey Kuznetsov",

booktitle = "DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference",

publisher = "ACM",

address = "United States",

note = "2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021 : “Nowhere and Everywhere”, DIS2021 ; Conference date: 28-06-2021 Through 02-07-2021",

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}

Troiano, GM, Wood, M, Sonbudak, MF, Padte, RC & Harteveld, C 2021, "Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method. in W Ju, L Oehlberg, S Follmer, S Fox & S Kuznetsov (eds), DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere. ACM, pp. 48-63, 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021, Virtual, Online, United States, 28/06/21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462069

"Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method. / Troiano, Giovanni M.; Wood, Matthew; Sonbudak, Mustafa Feyyaz et al.
DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere. ed. / Wendy Ju; Lora Oehlberg; Sean Follmer; Sarah Fox; Stacey Kuznetsov. ACM, 2021. p. 48-63.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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T1 - "Are We Now Post-COVID?"

T2 - 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021

AU - Troiano, Giovanni M.

AU - Wood, Matthew

AU - Sonbudak, Mustafa Feyyaz

AU - Padte, Riddhi Chandan

AU - Harteveld, Casper

PY - 2021/6/28

Y1 - 2021/6/28

N2 - COVID-19 has heavily impacted our lives. To date, the ongoing pandemic continues to cause dramatic societal changes and raises shared sentiments of uncertainty for our future. As such, however, COVID-19 provides opportunities to explore futures through speculative research. Here, we gamify the story completion method (SCM) to explore futures post-COVID and ask 37 participants to play a day in the life of Sal in a post-COVID future. The game asks participants to describe what Sal sees, hears, or does throughout a day based on multiple story stems. Our analysis reveals narratives of post-COVID futures as business as usual, back to basics, or everyday chaos. Notably, these narratives raise concerns about privacy loss and increased militarization, but also envision futures post-COVID that reclaim stronger bond with nature and family. We discuss the lessons learned from gamifying the SCM and the temporal implications of performing speculative research during evolving dramatic events.

AB - COVID-19 has heavily impacted our lives. To date, the ongoing pandemic continues to cause dramatic societal changes and raises shared sentiments of uncertainty for our future. As such, however, COVID-19 provides opportunities to explore futures through speculative research. Here, we gamify the story completion method (SCM) to explore futures post-COVID and ask 37 participants to play a day in the life of Sal in a post-COVID future. The game asks participants to describe what Sal sees, hears, or does throughout a day based on multiple story stems. Our analysis reveals narratives of post-COVID futures as business as usual, back to basics, or everyday chaos. Notably, these narratives raise concerns about privacy loss and increased militarization, but also envision futures post-COVID that reclaim stronger bond with nature and family. We discuss the lessons learned from gamifying the SCM and the temporal implications of performing speculative research during evolving dramatic events.

KW - COVID-19

KW - design fiction

KW - game design

KW - gamification

KW - research fiction

KW - speculative design

KW - speculative research

KW - story completion method

KW - uncertainty

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85110088550

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DO - 10.1145/3461778.3462069

M3 - Conference contribution

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BT - DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

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A2 - Oehlberg, Lora

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A2 - Kuznetsov, Stacey

PB - ACM

Y2 - 28 June 2021 through 2 July 2021

ER -

"Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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