Design Drama: A Person-Oriented Method to Foster Creativity and Holistic Human Development

Abstract

Design Drama is an applied theatre method to foster creativity and holistic human development in educational and professional contexts. It incorporates theatre games, creative improvisation exercises, storytelling techniques and other resources from different artistic, educational, and therapeutic fields into the design process. This method combines divergent thinking with embodied creativity to support idea generation and concept definition. Also, it helps to research in-depth the users of products or services by considering them as if they were characters performing in a story (project dramatization). Just as an actor does when studying a role in a play, Design Drama encourages designers to do work on themselves to identify with their project recipients rationally, emotionally, and physically and deeply understand their actual needs. Finally, such a person-oriented approach fosters designers’ soft skills and team building in group work, encouraging personal growth and increased empathy.