Empowering End Users in Design of Mobile Technology Using Role Play as a Method: Reflections on the Role-Play Conduction

Role play as a method hag several qualities that make it a profound candidate as a technique to understand user needs for mobile devices and services. However, making role-play participants act is a recognized but little discussed problem in relation to using role-play in design. This paper focuses on the how the role-play facilitator can arrange for the necessary conditions for making role-play participants act out realistic and relevant scenarios. The paper contributes with reflections on the role-play facilitator's conduction of role plays, by applying and discussing a general framework for role-play conduction on seven role play design workshops carried out in the period 2001 - 2005. The framework on role play conduction originally developed by the psychologist Yardley-Matwiejczuk [1], and has previously not been applied to role-play design workshops.