Water management is a complex issue in which many actors are involved. Successfully including civic stakeholders in decision-making requires the use of non-traditional methods of participation. This essay proposes the combination of serious games – games that have another purpose besides entertainment – with Design Thinking to discuss water policies. The main contribution of the study is to see how different water-related serious games may be classified and applied during each Design Thinking phase (discovery, definition, development and delivery). The combination of Design Thinking and serious games has been applied successfully before to discuss and reach agreements regarding environmental actions. This essay is written for those who want to learn about the possibilities of serious games during each phase of Design Thinking processes, with a case study in the context of water management.
Read the essay written by Mar Escarrabill and Socrates Schouten.