Role playing in design asks participants to step into the shoes of a user, a service employee, or another actor in a system and to improvise their responses to a scenario in real time. It is a powerful empathy-building and idea-testing technique that brings abstract personas and journey maps to life and reveals interaction dynamics that no static diagram can capture. When teams act out scenarios before building them, they consistently discover problems, opportunities, and emotional dimensions that would otherwise surface only after significant investment.
Role Playing
Acting out scenarios to surface problems before they ship
A
Designers Academy
9 September 2026 · 4 min read
DesignMethods
In brief
Design role playing is an empathy-building and idea-testing technique where participants act out user or service scenarios to reveal interaction dynamics and identify problems early.
