In a new software design project that I’m working on, I’m simply not allowed to observe the current human interactions as they occur offline.
The context we are working in is a bit foreign to me and actual observation would be invaluable. My client had a brilliant idea – role play!
So today we got into it! I felt like I was back at Lifeline learning how to do phone counselling - role play, after role play after role play before I was allowed near the phones!
I played the role of the end-user and my client the service provider. It was amazing the ideas we came up with in 20 minutes! By empathising with the end-user I could instantly see things that would improve the interaction online.
The exciting thing was that some of the functionality that we came up with doesn’t even exist now! Completely new tools that are only useful online! Amazing!
A couple of colleagues were watching us and said they couldn’t believe all the ideas they had too! I could see their pens smoking as they wrote notes!
It turns out that the role-play process we fell into today through sheer desperation has been addressed by usability practitioners before.
‘Role playing is a time-tested psychological technique to put people into a more conducive context to gain the information you need.’
He used it to get research participants into the right frame of mind. However, today we found that it was an incredibly useful technique for designers to objectify the online interaction and identify better ways of doing things. It allowed us to interrogate the context of usage and simultaneously envision how the online environment can be leveraged to make the service outcome possibly better than face-to-face! Time will tell on that one!
Spool also suggests in this persona article, that we could have initiated role-playing with Personas. We didn’t formally adopt personas today (they are not ready yet) but my role was discussed before I launched into it.
Gry Seland wrote a great research paper on Role play as a design method. He suggests role-play has the following uses:
1. making end users active participants in the development process,
2. creating a focus on user needs,
3. fast idea creation in early phases of a project, and
4. enhancing the developers’ understanding of the future context-of-use.
Lots of links to academic articles can be found on a old IxDA Feb 2008 discussion about interaction design and theatre. It suggests that ‘participatory design can involve role playing to understand task flows and the needs of users and also to envision how a future design might affect the overall practices’.
Why don’t you try out this research method in your next project, particularly if you are short on time or money and can’t access your users directly. Hey, I’m sure you did role plays as a kid? You never know, you might have fun!