Methods: organising principles and general guidelines for Participatory Design projects

Participatory Design is about engaging users in the design of new information technology. Much of the research within Participatory Design has been concerned with developing and improving methods, techniques and tools supporting how Participatory Design can be done in practice. Methods are ‘recipes’ for Participatory Design. Methods are prescriptions (i.e. normative descriptions) of how Participatory Design projects can be set up so that users are enabled to take an active part in the activities and decisions throughout which new information technology is designed and built. Participatory Design methods include tools and techniques, as well as organising principles and general guidelines for the process. These are all based on a particular Participatory Design worldview or perspective. This chapter departs from some of the fundamental perspectives of Participatory Design – as described in previous chapters – and aims to show how they can be translated to ways of conducting, organising and carrying out Participatory Design. Participatory Design methods have traditionally all been concerned with information tech-nology development projects – also referred to as ‘system development’ and ‘system development projects’ (Andersen et al. 1990). Information technology is a highly complex technical artefact. As its functionality depends on a computer program, which is a description of the technology’s behaviour, it is extremely malleable. At the same time this provides a challenge. The program does not resemble the final product that the user will experience. The program has to be executed for the user to experience its interaction and its behaviour. The challenge for the design process, in the context of Participatory Design, is therefore how to develop a highly complex piece of technology and at the same time be flexible for learning processes resulting in changes to both the interface and the functionality of the technology throughout the design process – and even beyond.