Use of a roleplaying exercise to illustrate design stakeholder roles in a first-year design course

Abstract

VANT 150 is a first-year course in designand sustainability for international students enrolled inthe Vantage One program at UBC. One of its learningoutcomes is to understand the importance ofcommunication between different stakeholders in thedesign process.The 2016 final exam revealed that students haddifficulties understanding the positions of the designer,client and user as stakeholders. A simulation(roleplaying) exercise was implemented in 2017 in orderto help students better understand these roles and raiseawareness about the importance of communicationbetween them.The 2016 and 2017 final exams included a question todifferentiate stakeholder roles. We found that the averagescore in this question was 8% higher in 2017 than in2016. This difference is statistically significant withp < 0.005. This suggests the stakeholder simulationactivity helped our students better understand theseconcepts.