Fictional characters in participatory design sessions: Introducing the “design alter egos” technique

In recent years, the discourse concerning the relationship between narrative theory – storytelling in general – interactivity, and design is undeniably noteworthy. A significant part of this discourse concerns the use of fictional characters in design. Fictional characters have been used as user representatives, either substituting actual users or supporting idea generation, and their foremost objective is to facilitate the identification of user needs and goals and to support the development of detailed and comprehensive scenarios. Motivated by the aforementioned ongoing discourse and inspired by relevant approaches in the use of fictional characters in design, we aim to investigate the applicability and effectiveness of their use as a creative technique in participatory design sessions. We present a novel approach to using fictional characters in collaborative design of educational software with students, one that asks the participants for the formation and use of their own fictional characters – we introduce the term “design alter egos” – as a means to eliciting requirements and design ideas. In order to evaluate our approach, we conducted 20 collaborative design sessions with the participation of 94 undergraduate university students (aged 19–24) for eliciting requirements for the design of an ideal course website. The analysis of the results suggests that the design alter egos technique liberated the majority of the students from the fear of straightforwardly exposing themselves, supported and enhanced their introspection, stimulated their creativity, and helped to establish an informal and constructive atmosphere throughout the design sessions. We suggest the use of design alter egos as an engaging and effective supportive technique for co-designing educational software with students.