This document discusses using drama methods such as bodystorming, storyboarding, and playback theatre in service concept design. Bodystorming involves acting out service scenarios to prototype and test interactions. Storyboarding uses lego figures to simulate a service. Playback theatre has customers share stories which actors then portray to provide different perspectives. Drama workshops also collect customer stories through embodied exercises and reflections to generate insights. These methods allow prototyping services in context through experiential activities rather than traditional brainstorming.

1. Satu Miettinen, Juha Miettinen, Antti Kares, Raisa Leinonen and Timo Sirviö
Kuopio Academy of Design, Savonia University of Applied Sciences
Finland
P.O. BOX 98, FIN -70101 KUOPIO
Email: office@designkuopio.fi
"DE-SME - Intelligent Furniture - Training for Design,
Environment and New Materials in SMEs"
Agreement n. 2009 - 2196 / 001 - 001

2. Theme 5.3.3. How to use drama
methods in service concept design?

3. Bodystorming
• Prototyping method, creating, generating and
modelling new service features Empathic design
method
• The idea in bodystorming is to act as though the
service would exist, ideally in the context where it
would be used.
• This method gives the opportunity to test the
proposed service and its interactions either inside
the service design team or including the
participants.

4. Bodystorming
• Different service situations can be acted out,
for example, the customer service situation at
the hotel reception. Service designers create
the service situation, cast the roles, practise
with the professional or on their own and play
the situation. The purpose is to prototype and
come up with new solutions, test new
interactions and make ad hoc innovations.

5. Theatrical methods in action
Using drama to improve lobby area at Cumulus

6. Using storyboarding and lego figures to act out a service scenario

7. Bodystorming
• Bodystorming can reduce the amount of time needed to
study documents of user observations. People can more
quickly and with less effort build a mental model of the
surrounding, directly observable environment. In contrast,
in traditional brainstorming, documentations of contextual
factors, be they textual or pictorial, tend to be lengthy and
take long to study.
• The key idea in bodystorming is that the descriptions of a
problem domain (i.e. design questions) given to
bodystorming participants can concentrate more on the
description of aspects of the problem that are not
observable, e.g. psychological (e.g. user needs), social (e.g.
interpersonal relationships) or interactional (e.g. turn-
taking in conversations).

8. Collecting stories in play-back theatre
• In play-back theatre spectators are asked to tell
stories, usually within the frame of some leading
theme and opening questions asked by the
conductor. Conductor is a link between the audience
and the actors. These tales can be anything from the
simple everyday events to the most dramatic
moments of life.The teller will watch his / her story
played back by actors, who improvise with different
techniques depending on what aspects of the story
are seen crucial.

9. • Despite the importance of the narratives, the
performance is to take the verbal rendition of
experience and translate it into not-so-verbal
drama. The person whose story is played is
thus able to see new aspects of his experience
and to relate to it in a more inclusive and
communal way.

10. • First, the actors lay out the rules of the game
by coming to stage and telling their own little
stories connected to the theme. This works as
an introduction and kind of a model to the
audience: you can tell simple things in a
simple way. After this conductor asks some
very simple questions like “What came to your
minds when you watched these stories?”.

11. • The actors create an image with movements
and improvised speech. This session with the
teachers in the social and health care
department started with feelings and
projections of the working week and the
questions of retirement came little later.After
short techniques came a moment of
discussion in pairs relating the feelings about
growing older and ending one’s working life.

12. • This was followed by longer stories told by any
volunteer, who wanted to have her story
displayed. The teller wasasked to choose one
of the actors to represent her self. The teller
can then give feedback of what she has seen:
associations, thoughts, emotions, corrections

13. Collecting stories in drama workshops
• Drama workshop is a matrix for collaborative,
active doing, using a variety of methods and
exercises to investigate chosen issues. It may
involve warm-up games and physical
exercises, discussion, improvisation and
creating still images and small scenes which
are observed, reflected and modified.

14. • In drama workshops the stories were seen in the
physical embodiments and reflections done by the
participants, in still images and small scenes based
on the instructions like: “Relate in small groups a)
the worst moment of your working life and b) the
best imaginable moment and then do still images of
them”. The images were first interpreted and
observed by others: “What do you see in this image?
Who are these people? What are they thinking?”
And: “How could we change this nightmarish scene
to a positive one?”

15. References
Oulasvirta, A., Kurvinen, E. and Kankainen, T. (2003): Understanding contexts by being there: case studies
in bodystorming. Pers Ubiquit Comput (2003) 7: 125–134 DOI 10.1007/s00779-003-0238-7. London: Springer-Verlag.
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/oulasvir/ scipubs/bodystorming_AO_EK_TK.pdf (2.5.2009)
Iacucci, G., Kuutti, K. and Ranta, M. (2000): On the Move with a Magic Thing: Role Playing in Concept
Design of Mobile Services and Devices. DIS ’00, Brooklyn, New York. http://users.tkk.fi/~giulio/ P1_jacucci.pdf (2.5.2009)
Buchenau, M. and Fulton Suri, J. (2000): Experience Prototyping. San
Francisco: IDEO. http://www.ideo. com/images/uploads/thinking/ publications/pdfs/FultonSuriBuchenau-
Experience_PrototypingACM_8-00. pdf (20.4.2009)
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16. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication
reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any
use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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