Do games have the power to reduce power distance in co-design?

Abstract

As globalization progresses, online co-design activities, including participants with different cultural backgrounds, offer distinctive insights from diverse perspectives, yet face challenges in adapting to cultural differences and bridging communication gaps. Power distance is considered a key factor that hinders co-design activities, especially in East Asian culture. In this study, we conducted a quasi-experiment to investigate the impact of a gameful co-design workshop on several key dimensions: participants’ perceptions of power distance, interpersonal communication, intrinsic motivation, and player experience of need satisfaction. A total of 92 participants were assigned to co-design groups under three different conditions: online game-based, online non-game-based, and offline non-game-based workshops. We examined the effectiveness of gameful design in these contexts and the correlation between perceived power distance and player experience. Our goal is to identify game design strategies that can reduce power distance and foster engagement in co-design, especially in hierarchical cultures. This research contributes to the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and game design by offering actionable design strategies and theoretical insights to address social and collaborative innovation challenges in global co-design environments.