Scenario-Based Design

Scenario-based design is a family of techniques in which the use of a future system is concretely described at an early point in the development process. One reason that scenarios have become so popular in interactive system design is that they enable rapid communication about usage possibilities and concerns among many different stakeholders. A solution-first approach to design is energizing, effective, and efficient; it explains the popularity of contemporary system development approaches like rapid prototyping and extreme programming. Scenarios can be made even more effective as work-oriented design objects when users are directly involved in creating them. Design reviews and formative evaluations are ancillary activities that must be coordinated with the design itself. Scenarios of use are multifarious design objects; they can describe designs at multiple levels of detail and with respect to multiple perspectives. Problem scenarios are transformed and elaborated through several phases of iterative design.