Participatory Design

2014 CCCC presentation, arguing that the philosophy driving the creation and continuing development of the Writing Studio (http://writing.colostate.edu) positively influences user (student writer, writer, writer teacher, teacher) experience and learning.

Résumé/Abstract Cet article compare les résultats de deux études qui exploraient les critères de conception de portails Web pour enfants. Lors de la première étude, effectuée en 2000, quatre groupes de discussion comprenant des élèves âgés de 10 à 13 ans ont évalué quatre portails pour enfants (Ask Jeeves for Kids, Kids-Click!, Lycos Zone et Yahooligans!).

Cooperative Inquiry provides a framework for involving children in the design process of technologies intended for use by children. Traditionally, the Cooperative Inquiry approach has been applied in laboratory settings with typically developing children. To extend Cooperative Inquiry to better suit diverse populations, the authors build on previous work conducted in a classroom with students with learning differences. Four implications for modifying Cooperative Inquiry when working with children with learning differences, drawn from the authors’ previous research, were implemented in the current study. The recommendations of (1) informal social time, (2) high adult-to-child ratios, (3) verbal as well as written instructions, and (4) planning for high levels of engagement were used to engage ten boys ages eleven and twelve with diagnoses of learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, autism spectrum disorders, and anxiety disorders. These students and researchers, working as a team, developed an adventure-based computer game while following the modified form of Cooperative Inquiry. The first three recommendations were upheld during the current study, with the fourth not observed as strongly as during the initial work.

"Abstract—This paper discusses the use of participatory methodologies for designing services to be added to a mobile application supporting students' activities.
The work is related to a project for building a city-wide campus in a small city with a rather dynamic university environment located in northern Italy.
Since the beginning of the project, users (that is, students) have been involved in designing services and applications for Smart Campus. The participation of the students has been via individual and group interviews (focus group). Students have been involved in designing and testing services and applications.
In this work, we tried to increase the level of participation of the users, in the tradition of Participatory Design.
This paper describes how the results of PD workshops provided relevant and unexpected outcomes with relatively small effort, providing the design of an application closer to the students’ needs.
This work has allowed the emergence of the desire in students to include an e-learning perspective in a single application, in order to formalize and aggregate some community dynamics that already exist.
The output of this research has been remarkable by virtue of the strategic choices made in the framework of participatory techniques, the chosen methodologies allowed to work within a short time frame and to transform a potential liability into an asset."

Based on two examples from user-driven innovation projects, we discuss what it means to undertake cultural analysis when the task is to change practices of everyday life. Whether it is about new garbage bins or new bathrooms, the examples enable us to demonstrate how and why companies and public-sector institutions are increasingly inviting cultural analysts to contribute to their work. At the same time, the examples allow us to illustrate some of the difficulties that cultural analysts experience when they – in the name of change – begin to scrutinise and ‘stir up’ the practices of everyday life; for instance, by studying how citizens with disabilities handle garbage and personal hygiene. What happens, we ask, when cultural analysis is called upon to inform the ways in which such complex practices might change? Through our two examples, we show how the difficulty relates to balancing a desire for change with a respect for the durable structures and fundamental differences of everyday life. One of the main objectives of cultural analysis is to identify and describe such structures and differences, and then to bring our insights to the attention of various stakeholders. As a result, cultural analysis – often via ethnographic fieldwork – brings citizens and users into being. This cannot always be fitted into the predefined range of possibilities that many change-oriented projects – consciously or unconsciously – operate within.

Intimacy is a crucial element of domestic life, and manyinteractive technologies designed for other purposes have been appropriated for use within intimate relationships.However, there is a deficit in current understandings of howtechnologies are used within intimate relationships, and how to design technologies to support intimate acts. In this paper we report on work that has addressed these deficits.We used cultural probes and contextual interviews and other ethnographically informed techniques to investigatehow interactive technologies are used within intimaterelationships. From this empirical work we generated athematic understanding of intimacy and the use of interactional technologies to support intimate acts. We used this understanding to inform the design of intimatetechnologies. A selection of our design concepts is also presented.

"BACKGROUND: Fishbone diagrams have been widely promoted as a systems-focused hazard analysis tool for use in root cause analysis, but they suffer from a number of structural weaknesses, including a unidirectional structure that only takes into account forces that promote an accident (ignoring those that make the accident less likely or less severe) and a means of displaying these forces that does not convey any difference in strength of influence. In a separate but related issue, many healthcare organizations suffer from a lack of change management expertise.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: To address these concerns, I present a novel technique, the Lovebug diagram, which draws from both Fishbone diagrams and force-field analysis (an approach to analyzing planned change). This new technique adds value to both its progenitor methods, while retaining their key strengths and ease of use. It can be used both prospectively, to assess planned changes, and retrospectively to assess unplanned (accidental) departures from the status quo.

DISCUSSION: The Lovebug diagram is a more powerful analytical tool than its progenitor methods; however, overall adoption of systems-focused tools for root cause analysis remains suboptimal. Additional research is needed to determine how best to promote a truly systems-focused approach to healthcare root cause analysis. Beyond this retrospective use of the technique, it represents a simple tool to assist healthcare organizations with prospective change management.

Available from: http://cri.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/25/1356262213510855.abstract"

"""he professions responsible for the design of the built environment play a critical role in shaping the future development of sustainable human settlements in South Africa. Unfortunately these professions continue to be characterised by a preoccupation with top down acute technical solutions, often informed by international ‘best practice’, which are disconnected from the socio-cultural, economic and political context of South Africa.
This presentation argues for an inclusion of additional values and methodologies used in the training of these professions. Drawing on examples from the training of University students of Architecture in Gauteng and practical experience with such environments, it describes the impact that methodologies such as un-learning, interdisciplinary strategic frame working, and participative analytical and design exercises can have on expanding approaches to development design in South Africa.
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This paper reports upon an engagement-based study that was carried out on the Isle of Tiree (the Inner Hebrides, Scotland). The purpose of the study was to examine the use of a tabletop projection system as a mechanism to allow some of the islands inhabitants to initially discuss their understanding of data, data needs and to further explicate the ways in which communities or researchers might use such systems to engage with communities in a participatory-civic manner.

In neighborhoods throughout major American cities, grassroots efforts in community revitalization are reshaping the public processes and institutional framework involving the design and development of public space. Treating the public realm as both a physical space and an expression of relationships between multiple institutions, organizations, and individuals, this study examines the social and political epistemologies and processes behind the creation of a waterfront park in Oakland, California. It also presents a framework of community-driven practice in the making of the public realm, based on converging theories of social movements and planning and a critique of the current participatory design model.

This paper discusses an exploratory approach for identifying potential ICT design problems in a local community through collaboration with its members. We are currently participating in the activities of a volunteer community in Syria, where members appropriate Facebook and other online tools to collaborate and organize. In such context, conducting participatory design is not straightforward and needs to be problematized. For instance, what is the desired outcome of participation? Who participates in what? And what are the suitable tools? Here we focus on the value of participation in defining relevant design problems in collaboration with the community. We present our research process where we adopt an ethnographic approach guided by the works of sociologists Howard Becker, Juliet Corbin, and Anselm Strauss. We finally describe how this approach also allows us to move from participant observation towards participatory design.

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