Project

The Together-At Home Card Game

Name: KITE Design Research GmbH
Price range: $

Topics: Diversity and Interaction
Key Actors: Trainers (BUND) and Federal Volunteer Service participant (Bufdis)
Outputs: Card Set
Client: BUND

How can digital interactions be aided and enriched by a simple analog add-on?

The Federal Volunteer Service

Ein Holztisch mit einer Anordnung aus Stöckchen, die ein geometrisches Muster bilden, umgeben von grünen Blättern, Pollen und einigen Steinen. Im Hintergrund liegen ein Notizbuch, farbige Stifte, ein Becher und ein Wasserglas.

We work together with BUND, the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V., which coordinates a federal volunteer service in which volunteers of all ages do voluntary work in various non-profit environmental projects. This commitment includes mandatory seminars that promote both environmental issues and personal development. Our team designs and offers a series of these seminars on topics such as “new working environments” “valuing business,” “sufficiency” and more.

Digital Seminars

Illustration von vier farbigen, cartoonartigen Figuren, die verschiedene Emotionen und Aktionen darstellen:
Eine grüne Figur sitzt mit einem nachdenklichen Gesicht und der Überschrift "Ich brauche eine Pause".
Eine rote Figur späht halb hinter einer Tür hervor mit der Beschriftung "Ich bin gleich zurück!".
Eine blaue Figur mit einem überraschten Gesichtsausdruck und einem Fernglas vor den Augen trägt die Beschriftung "Ich sehe/höre euch nicht...".
Eine tiefblaue Figur hält ihr Ohr, als ob sie versucht, besser zu hören.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic posed the challenge of converting the seminars into a digital format. Our aim was to meet the needs of participants with little or no tech know-how.

In this context, we invented Zusammen-Zuhause Quartett: a card game that doesn’t just offer tips for video conferencing and so on but also enables interactive participation. Its name refers to being together although everyone was confined to their homes. Participants and trainers can both use the cards to do mood checks, make themselves heard wordlessly via the camera or even make non-verbal requests, like “I need a break” or “I didn't get that.”

A haptic experience in the digital space

Bunte Karten mit verschiedenen Grafiken und Texten, darunter Gesichtsausdrücke, Symbole und kurze Nachrichten wie 'Stimmungslage' und 'Ich bin gleich zurück'

The card game proved to be a valuable tool that lowered the communication threshold in digital seminars and promoted active, appreciative participation. It enabled a smoother adaptation to the online seminar format for all the participants and at the same time made room for fun, interaction and learning. It stands as an example of how education and technology can creatively merge to meet the needs of all.

KITE Project Team
Miriam Lahusen, Marie Beuthel, Anne Wohlauf, Magdalena Guranova and Jessica Dierich

Your contact:

Miriam Lahusen (she/her)

miriam@kite.design

Miriam is a co-founder and managing director at KITE. In her role as CFO (Chief Financial Officer), she is responsible for the company's finances. Her focus areas include participatory methodology and social sustainability.

She began her career in textile design, later specializing in sustainable design research at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). She studied at the Berlin Weißensee Academy of Art and completed semesters abroad in Casablanca and Havana. She graduated with a project on sustainable development in cooperation with the Institut Futur of the Free University (FU) Berlin.