Andrea Botero

Towards commons design in participatory design

This article probes what the Participatory Design (PD) field can gain from exploring the literature on commons. Through selected examples we point to some connections and commonalities between that literature and the PD field. In doing this, we also bring forward several contributions that this literature can make to PD in order to develop design strategies and approaches to commons design. We believe these can further PD practices and research and help PD to operate with and thrive within increasingly complex design issues and contexts.

From closed to open to what?: an exploration on community innovation principles

This paper introduces a set of community innovation principles relevant for social media design. By drawing on the comparison between Closed and Open Innovation introduced by Chesbrough, we develop a set of hypotheses that explore the nature of community innovation practices and their related principles. Furthermore we test those principles against two real world cases.

Enhancing citizenship: the role of in-between infrastructures

In this paper, we draw on material from a participatory design project that focused on the practices, infrastructures, and technologies used for creating and sharing information about the urban environment. The research strategy that we followed includes the collaborative design of a prototype environment and service called Urban Mediator (UM), as well as its subsequent deployment and appropriation in use through several cases. We examine some of the challenges and opportunities that exist in designing in-between infrastructures that can both address a more fluid and active notion of citizenship and understand it as practiced, rather than as a given role. Our research demonstrates that in-between infrastructures can have a role in encouraging a variety of stakeholders, including city officials and citizens, to experiment with and understand some of the complex aspects of participation. Following this argument, we also suggest some ways in which Participatory Design contributes to supporting continuous and iterative design-in-use.

When Self-Organization Intersects with Urban Planning: Two Cases from Helsinki

Participation as self-organization has emerged as a new form of citizen activism, often supported by digital technology. A comparative qualitative analysis of two case studies in Helsinki indicates that the self-organization of citizens expands the practice of urban planning. Together, they enable the mobilization of different groups around issues related to urban space. The consequences have become visible in temporary uses of places, event making and community development through bottom-up cultures. However, the lacking links to decision-making constrains new solutions and creative actions.

A digital ecosystem for boosting user-driven service business

In recent years, we have seen the rise of Web 2.0, where users become co-creators and software turns into services. While Web 2.0 technologies and concepts have been studied separately, we suggest that the digital ecosystem they form together and the ways in which users interact with it in social contexts have not been made explicit. In this paper, we provide a conceptual model of a community and a digital ecosystem for boosting user-driven service business. To construct such a model, we first identify the key actors and their interactions by applying use case modelling. Based on that, conceptual modelling is used to sketch an illustrative model of the overall ecosystem. Finally, we use the field of bioinformatics to evaluate the model and to propose ideas for boosting user-driven service business in that field as well.

Designing locative media for creative misuse: learning from urban intervention

This paper examines the possibilities of designing locative media for creative misuse by learning from non-conventional and interventive urban practices. Instead of taking technologies as a starting point, we focused on the location and media related practices of two distinct communities who by virtue of the practices they are engaged with, have a particular relationship to places and spaces. By collaboratively mapping their practices we aimed to ground the further development of locative media application concepts and formulate design considerations for creative misuse in this context.