Sensitizing Scenarios: Sensitizing Designer Teams to Theory

Concepts and theories that emerge within the social sciences tend to be nuanced, dealing with complex social phenomena. While their relevance to design could be high, it is difficult to make sense of them in design projects, especially when participants have a variety of backgrounds. We report on our experiences using role-play scenarios as a way to sensitize heterogeneous designer teams to complex theoretical concepts related to museology as social and cultural phenomena. We discuss design requirements on such scenarios, and the importance of connecting their execution closely to the context of the design and the current stage of the design process.