Affordances of construction toys

Abstract

While affordances and play experiences are both topics of high interest in design research, there is a need to better understand the relationship between affordances and toys. The aim of this study is to shed light on how affordances of construction toys influence the play experiences of children, comparing play situations enabled by two different construction sets in a series of play sessions with children aged 5 and 6. The play sessions were recorded and analysed to identify perceived affordances. The study shows that both functional and narrative affordances are important for initiating and maintaining the play experience, and exposes a possible division of narrative affordances in relation to a construction set in instant and latent affordances. A focus on these affordances has potentials for aiding designers to create construction toys that better support children in initiating and maintaining play, and may even offer new perspectives in other design domains.

Keywords:

• Affordances
• play
• toys
• construction
• imagination

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the children participating in the play sessions, and the institutions involved for their cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jesper Falck Legaard

Jesper Falck Legaard holds a PhD in Experience-based Design. He is Associate Professor at Design School Kolding, Denmark, within the lab for Play and Design, and has a background in Industrial Design. Legaard works with design of ‘Playables’ – i.e. objects intentionally designed for play, focusing on how particular design qualities of the objects may afford play experiences.

Helle Marie Skovbjerg

Helle Marie Skovbjerg is a Professor of Design for Play at Design School Kolding, Denmark. For several years, Skovbjerg has been working with conceptualizing play through what she calls ‘the mood perspective’. Skovbjerg has published several books and a number of journal papers within the field of play research and design. Skovbjerg is currently the head of two larger research projects: Can I Join In, about participation and play, and Playful Learning, about play within the education of pedagogies and teachers’ education.