One of my favorite Revelation based activities is the “Help Mabel” activity.  In this activity the participant is shown a picture of someone who knows nothing about the topic – for instance a friendly grandmother (named Mabel, of course) – who knows nothing about the digital world, but wants to learn and has a bunch of questions. Mabel’s questions are, of course your questions, for the participants. 

What Help Mabel activities do so well is to give participant a target for their answers and explanations. If the target knows nothing about the topic, then the participants will answer the questions using the most basic terms that they are able to. It’s a great device for not only taking participants out of the direct question and answer dynamic, but also making it a fun exercise to communicate what they know and understand about a given topic.  And more fun equals more engagement and better answers!

There are many variations you can use to good effect on nearly any topic and your Help "targets" can be changed to suit the purpose. Here’s a screenshot of the Mabelexample on digital content to give you an example of how it can work: