Design research and practice takes many shapes and forms. Participatory Design is an approach with roots in Scandinavian research powers as a way to empower workers to have agency in the design process of new workplace tools. The field has expanded and can broadly be defined as a design approach that includes all stakeholders as active members in the design process to better needs and co-create designs together with practitioners toward the goal of mutual learning.
You may have heard it referred to by others as “co-design” or “co-creation.” The key to hone in on is the prefix “co-”. In order to truly co-create, the power dynamic between “designer as expert” and “user” must be broken. Participatory Design is a methodology that strives to transition designers toward the role of facilitator and create the conditions where participants who are less familiar with design and design processes have the ability to move the design process forward. Since those participants will be the ones using the products, they will ultimately have a more embodied sense of whether a design is trending toward greater effectiveness.
In the previous class, you focused on traditional design research processes like interviews, observation and other ethnomethodological tactics. Let’s discuss some of those and review their strengths and weaknesses:
How are your specs coming along? Let’s review some examples.
Design for Living: A Day in the Life
Perform this approach not with yourself but with a participant
A Beginner's Guide To User Journey Mapping
There are many ways to journey map—this is one approach
A simple activity that invites participants to imagine a best-case scenario/tool/experience. Put simply, ask individuals, “If you had a magic button to address this specific topic, what would it do?” Invite them to sketch with you, describe it, etc.
Draw a bullseye on a piece of paper. In the innermost circle, have participants include things and relationships they value the most. In the outer circles, have participants put other people/things/relationships important to them in descending order. This method helps to identify things that participants really value. The key is to have them think of the specific topic/issue you’re exploring.