Playful software often conjures up video games, but I don't mean that. Where I see the lack of play is in consumer software: design tools, social networks, dating apps, messengers. Borrowing from Brian Upton's The Aesthetics of Play , I'm talking about play that isn't segregated from ordinary life, “[play that's] embedded within ordinary life;... See more

I would advise, as an industry, to pull back from this obsession with user wants and user needs and instead to design for fun. What you want your players to feel, what is the emotional path for them to get there, and how does your software—your business product, if that's what you're building—take them along the path?