Tools for designing and delivering multiple-perspective scenarios

This paper describes two prototype tools developed as part of a design-based investigation into the use of multiple-perspective scenarios. A multiple-perspective scenario is one constructed as many different narratives about the same events, with the intention being to explore how the different perspectives might be coordinated or might reach some accommodation. The first prototype assists an author to construct such a scenario, while the second prototype allows the scenario to be delivered to physically distributed groups who communicate with each other using video-conferencing. This exploratory investigation demonstrates how the scenario must be represented with extensive additional data and meta-data to render the authors' intentions visibile and meaningful. In this way, the scenario can be re-played in a way that allows for re-discovery of the issues contained within.