Visualizing context, mobility and group interaction: role games to design product concepts for mobile communication

摘要

In this paper, we describe how role games could be used in concept development of mobile cooperative systems. The design of such systems needs to take into account the mobility of users, various contexts, activities and group interaction. We claim that role games can be organized to visualize all these aspects to better envision new devices and services for mobile communication. Role games as a technique in concept generation were experimented with and developed in six games sessions within two product development projects. We propose two features that seem to be critical for using role games to achieve our objectives: the preparation of a rich and detailed environment, and a good flexible game structure and set of rules.