VIEWS card game
Introducing VIEWS
Imagine: a small town is planning to build windmills. In order to gauge opinion, the town council organizes a public assembly and the emotions of councillors and citizens run high. How can you balance the interests of all these people with the desire for sustainable innovation? This is the basis of VIEWS, a card game developed by researchers at the University of Groningen and Delft University of Technology.
VIEWS stands for “considering Values, Innovations and Emotions to facilitate Wise Decisions with Stakeholders”.
VIEWS is a role-playing activity that aims to help decision-makers better understand the emotions and perspectives of different people in society.
The setting for the game is a public assembly in which citizens and stakeholders are debating whether or not to implement several proposed sustainable innovations.
There are four variations of the game (see How to Play).
The goals of the game are to help decision-makers to understand the value-basis of emotional responses to innovations, to encourage decision-makers to incorporate values and emotions into their design processes, and to facilitate social interaction, discussion and critical reflection.
Download the cards at this link
Download the instructions at this link
Who should play this game?
Anyone who is involved with designing or implementing sustainable innovations, including new technologies or products, as well as new projects that implement existing technologies.
Players can be industry professionals (e.g. engineers, product developers, project managers, marketers) and policymakers – henceforth, “decision-makers”.
Secondary audiences can include business clients, interest groups/NGOs and members of the public, for example, if practitioners play the game with these groups as part of a public engagement strategy.
When to play?
The earlier in the process of innovation/ project development, the better.
The game will likely be most useful at the idea-generation stage for highlighting potential issues to be considered, and can be later played iteratively throughout the process of innovation development and project implementation.
How to play
Elements of the game
Number of players: 3-6
Play time: 20-60 minutes (depending on the version that is played)
Instruction booklet
150 Cards (the letters are printed on the backs of the cards)
Values (4 value definition cards + 10 value priority cards)
Innovations (6 scenario cards + 48 characteristics cards)
Emotions (72 emotion cards)
Wise decisions (4 cards containing discussion questions)
Stakeholders (6 cards – these are optional additions to the game)
Option 1: The Fast Track (20 min)
Aim: Guess your own values, based on the emotion clues that the other players give you.
Set up: Set out the emotions cards in draw piles.
Lay out the value definition cards.
Choose an innovation scenario.
Deal all players a value priority card (large symbols are high priority values, small symbols are low priority values).
Do not look at your own card until the end of the game!
Gameplay:
Reveal the first characteristic card (to increase the difficulty, reveal two cards, placing one card above the other).
Choose a player to start.
Player 1 holds up their value perspective card to the other players.
The other players discuss how Player 1 would feel about the characteristic (but don’t mention Player 1’s values!).
They then put an emotion card in front of Player 1.
Repeat for each player.
Once all players have an emotion card, reveal the next characteristic.
Work together to give all players an emotion card.
Repeat until everyone has four emotion cards.
Finally, each player guesses their own values, based on the characteristics cards and their emotion cards.
Option 2: The Public Assembly (60 min)
Aims: Guess the values of the other players and then work together to design a more socially-responsible innovation.
Set up: Set out the emotions cards in draw piles.
Lay out the value definition cards.
Choose an innovation scenario.
Deal all players a value priority card (hide from the others) and a stakeholder card (show to the others).
If desired, create new stakeholder roles that are more relevant to the scenario.
Stakeholder roles provide additional interests that can shape responses to the innovation, beyond one’s values.
Gameplay:
Reveal the first innovation characteristic card (to increase the difficulty, reveal two cards simultaneously).
All players consider how they feel about this characteristic, based on their values (large symbols = high priority values, small symbols = low priority values).
Choose one player to start.
Player 1 lays out one emotion card and explains it (e.g. “I feel a little/very… happy, excited, enthusiastic, conflicted, sad, angry, annoyed, neutral, etc.).
They can also choose to provide a brief argument or explanation relating to their stakeholder role (e.g. “As a small business owner, I like the idea of spending less on electricity”).
This explanation can be creative and does not necessarily need to correspond with their values.
However, the emotion card should always reflect their values.
Repeat for each player. Try to figure out what values underlie other players’ emotions, but don’t share your guesses yet!
Once all players have explained their emotion, lay out the next innovation characteristic.
Repeat rounds until everyone has four emotion cards in front of them.
All players then work together to infer the other players’ values.
Finally, work through the questions on the wise decisions cards as a team.
Option 3: A Simplified Public Assembly (40 min)
Same as Option 2, but without stakeholder cards (i.e. players only describe their emotions).
Option 4: Tailor-Made Scenarios (90 min)
Same as Option 2, but you can first create your own innovation scenario and characteristics cards.
The theory
Innovative solutions are needed to address societal challenges related to climate change, energy and resource use, and food security.
Members of the public can react emotionally to such innovations – for example, with anger, fear or excitement.
Negative emotions can lead to fierce resistance, whereas positive emotions can contribute to a successful introduction of an innovation.
Decision-makers often struggle to understand and predict people’s emotions, which prevents them from effectively incorporating people’s emotions in decision-making about innovations.
We propose that emotional responses to innovations are not random and irrational.
Instead, our research shows that emotional responses are rooted in people’s values (i.e., desirable goals that people find important and that motivate behaviour).
Psychological research has identified four important values that can underlie emotional responses to sustainable innovations.
Most people hold all of these values to a degree, but there is considerable variation in the relative importance that people place on each value.
Sustainable innovations can have different implications for people who prioritize different values.
Emotional responses to an innovation can be triggered by what the specific characteristics of the innovation imply for people’s core values (e.g. the innovation’s characteristics, such as its financial cost or environmental impact, may support or threaten the things that people value strongly).
People may thus feel negatively about innovations that have characteristics that threaten their core values, whereas they may feel positively about innovations that have characteristics that support their core values.
They may also feel mixed emotions towards innovations that have characteristics that both support and threaten their core values.
The four values
(Bouman et al., 2018)
Valuing nature and the environment
To prevent pollution
To protect the environment
To respect nature
Valuing the well-being of other people
That every person has
equal opportunities.
To take care of those who are worse off.
That every person is treated justly.
That there is no war or conflict.
To be helpful to others.
Valuing wealth, power, and achievement
To have control over
others’ actions.
To have authority over others.
To be influential.
To have money and possessions.
To work hard and be ambitious.
Valuing personal pleasure and comfort
To have fun
To enjoy life’s pleasures.
To do things [he/she] enjoys