Page 91 - Experience Based Co-design - a toolkit for Australia

Role plays
One of the best ways to experiment with scenarios and personas is to use role-plays and simple models of any technologies or improvements (such as cardboard cut-outs).
Role-plays are especially important when exploring intangible improvements and touchpoints (such as staff behaviours or communication) and times when people’s interactions are central to the service experience.
The major advantage is that you get to experience the kind of emotions that the patient or staff member has in that scenario. For example, an acted scenario produces spontaneous reactions and behaviours by the actors – ones that wouldn’t come to light without acting it out. You can then explore ways to improve the service experience for both staff and patients.
When using role-plays have someone observing/taking notes/time keeping so the rest of the team can concentrate on acting and staying in role. When the scenario is finished, make sure you talk about the experience of being each person in the scenario – what it felt like to be that person, why things did and didn’t work for them, and so on. If you have an audience, ask them to make observations about what they saw happening and what they understood from this. Summarise what you learned from the scenario and document it before moving on.
Adapted with permission from healthcodesign.org.nz