Participatory Design

Description

(context: from a discussion on PD in gaming)

T.T. Taylor:

"The notion that technology users, even seemingly unskilled ones, might be valuable participants in the construction and maintenance of systems ... Starting in the mid–1970s the participatory design (PD) tradition was involved in primarily integrating workers (often through trade unions) into the process of technology development and use in the workplace. Fundamental to much of the early work in the field was a concern for the power relationships between users, designers, and managers. PD sought to give workers a meaningful seat at the design table, enlisting them and their everyday practices into the very heart of the technologies they would use. Even more radically, the very notion that particular systems were inevitable was something also challenged, thus problematizing any determinist orientation (Ehn, 1988).

Over the years PD has morphed and adapted to various national contexts and socio–economic changes such that we might consider the weak and strong formulations of the orientation. Though some would dispute whether the name PD can be attached to it, for the purposes of this piece I will suggest, drawing on the work of Finn Kensing and Jeanette Blomberg (1998), two models. There is a weak form of the approach in which user–participants give designers access to their skills and experiences, but “have little or no control over the design process or its outcome.” Participation is constrained to “those aspects of the project where their input is viewed as valuable” but they cannot initiate spheres of intervention on their own and do not contribute to technology decisions (and for the purposes of this argument, game mechanics or structure). On the other hand, the strong version of PD is one in which users participate “not only because their skills and experience are considered valuable, but also because their interests in the design outcome are acknowledged and supported.” Participation by users is considered of core value to the success of the project and they are involved not only in the “user experience” side of things, but analysis, design, evaluation and selection of technology, and organizational implementation. Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman (2004) note the multidirectionality of the method, stating that, “Participatory design is a process of mutual learning, where designers and users learn from and about each other. Truly participatory design requires a shared social and cultural background and a shared language. Hence, participatory design is not only a question of users participating in design, but also a question of designers participating in use.” While game designers are typically avid players themselves, I think we might also see this as a call for their participation in the forms everyday non–designer users engage with the space." (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/special11_9/taylor/index.html)