The design box is a tool developed to aid in getting to the elevator pitch for a game or other creative product. It is intended as a tool to help groups deeply understand a problem and pitch creative solutions. This was presented at the Foundations of Digital Games 2014 conference aboard Liberty of the Seas as a work in progress.

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Pitch Perfect and
The Design Box
Roger Altizer & Jose Zagal
University of Utah

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You are here

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Box gets folks into design quick

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Just-us folks working together

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Bioinformatics Pitch Meeting

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Bio-informatics Team

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Bio-informatics with partners

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Easy as pie (still confusing)
• Falling in love is easy
• Pitching from the cuff is easy (ish)
• Ignoring the details is easy
• Pitching derivative ideas is easy
• Ending endless brainstorming is easy
• Avoiding competing ideas is easy
• Finding relief in a pitch is easy

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Life is hard
• Ideation is hard
• Designing with teams is hard
• Buy-in is hard
• Breaking a problem down is hard
• Thinking inductively is hard

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Assuming Assumptions
• Good design solves a problem
• Constraint breeds creativity
• Qualitative/inductive approach to design
• Iteration helps with ideation
• Coding-like process may bring new ideas or
problems up that are missed at first glance
• Brining clients and audience “in” allows for
design research, vetting, and just inclusion

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Punny Beginnings

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Design Box
Aesthetics
Technology
Audience
Question/Problem/Mechanic

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Technology
• What is the tech the project is required?
• What tech is available to the team?
• What tech is the team good at?
• Does the tech have any key advantages?
• What limitations does the tech impose?

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Audience
• Who is the end user?
• Who will be buying the game?
• Who will be distributing the game?
• Are there any other key stakeholders?
• Can we narrow down the audience?
• Is there anything about the audience we need
to pay special attention to?

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Aesthetic
• Is there required content?
• Is there a required style?
• What would you like the audience to feel?
• What limitations do we have on content?
• Is there a particular theme we want to
embrace?
• Is there any taboo content?

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Question/Problem/Mechanic
• What problem does this game need to solve?
• Does this game need to promote a certain
kind of play?
• What question is this game exploring?
• What is it we want to say as a team?
• Is there a particular mechanic we want or
need to explore?
• What does this thing need to really do?

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Step 2: All pitches welcome
• Moderator writes pitches inside of the box
• No pitch may be written in the box unless it
accounts for all four sides.
• Any member of the team present may pitch.
• Any member may riff off another’s idea.
• Repeat until ‘theoretical saturation’ occurs –
the ideas start to sound the same
• Cross talk about the walls but not the pitches
is allowed.

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Be cool with the box

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Step 3: Refine the walls
• What assumptions are being made in the
pitches that aren’t on the walls?
• Refine the walls to account for common
threads in the pitches.
• Refine the walls based upon the cross talk
from the previous step.
• Allow for drastic changes to the walls.

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Be transparent with the box

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Step 4: Rinse and repeat
• Take a photo of the pitches then erase them
and start over.
• Team members may not pitch the same ideas
as previous rounds.
• Team members may modify earlier pitches.
• Again, all pitches must work with all walls.
• Moderator may ask questions to help the
pitch evolve.

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Team should press on the box

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Step 5: The pitch
• Teams may repeat the steps as many times as
needed
• In the end the walls get “heavier” and the box
gets “smaller”
• The smaller the box, the fewer the pitches
that fit
• The last pitches should look like answers the
team came up with or agreed with

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Great big idea, tiny little box

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Your thoughts here
Roger Altizer
roger.altizer@utah.edu
@real_rahjur
Jose Zagal
jose.zagal@utah.edu
@JoseZagal
You’re on a boat!