Exploring play experiences through a post-phenomenological approach

With a primary focus on objects intended for play, the article presents an approach to understanding how artifacts shape human–world relations, drawing on phenomenological and post-phenomenological understandings of a play experience. The article draws insights from a play experiment with 22 design students who were tasked with building a Rube Goldberg-inspired creation. Following the task, the students wrote personal anecdotes, from which key themes and insights were extracted. These were analysed, first by using interpretative phenomenological analysis and second by applying Ihde's framework, reflecting how objects may act as mediators of human–world relations. The article contributes to an understanding of how the design of objects intended for play may shape human–world relations, explicated through a post-phenomenological perspective.