Unpacking the Notion of Participation in Participatory Design

The paper explores what exactly it is that users participate in when being involved in participatory design (PD), relating this discussion to the CSCW perspective on collaborative design work. We argue that a focus on decision-making in design is necessary for understanding participation in design....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComputer supported cooperative work Vol. 25; no. 6; pp. 425 - 475
Main Authors Bratteteig, Tone, Wagner, Ina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.12.2016
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Collaboration
Computer Science
Decision making
Linkages
Participation
Psychology
Social Sciences
User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction
Decision-making
Collaborative design
Participatory design
Choices
Power
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Summary:The paper explores what exactly it is that users participate in when being involved in participatory design (PD), relating this discussion to the CSCW perspective on collaborative design work. We argue that a focus on decision-making in design is necessary for understanding participation in design. Referring to Schön we see design as involving creating choices, selecting among them, concretizing choices and evaluating the choices. We discuss how these kinds of activities have played out in four PD projects that we have participated in. Furthermore, we show that the decisions are interlinked, and discuss the notion of decision linkages. We emphasize the design result as the most important part of PD. Finally, participation is discussed as the sharing of power, asking what the perspective of power and decision-making adds to the understanding of design practices.
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ISSN:0925-9724
1573-7551
DOI:10.1007/s10606-016-9259-4