Pastiche Scenarios borrow characters from works of fiction (novels, TV shows etc.). The use of such characters in scenarios allows the users to uncover facts that would otherwise be hidden. It is a way to overcome the writers block encountered when trying to envision personas, which leads to making them generic and undistinguished (thus creating uninteresting use scenarios). An example of such a scenario comes from Dearden (2006) where the scenarios where created by users themselves in a participatory design session:
Bart goes to a course at TLC Bart is at home playing up Homer. Bart doesn’t want to go to school. Marge explains ‘now Bart, you know you need to get education to get a good job like your father’s Bart gets on his skateboard and goes down to the school bus stop. Gets on the bus and the driver (otto) recognises him. “What’s up Bart”. Bart sits next to Nelson. He puts his card into the display unit on the back of the seat in front to read a comic he has downloaded. The display warns him when he gets to the stop at Waterloo Road Goes into the TLC class. He uses the card to sign in and the card also logs him into the computers. He starts showing Milhouse the comic again, but Tom Wear catches him and sends him to the headteacher’s office. At the office the head asks him for the card to see what’s on it. But Millhouse goes past Bart and asks what site the comic was on and downloads it onto his pen drive.
References
Dearden, A., Lauener, A., Slack, F., Roast, C. & Cassidy, S. (2006) Make it So! Jean-Luc Picard, Bart Simpson and the Design of E-Pubic Services
Leave a Reply