Jesper Simonsen

MUST: a method for participatory design

The article presents a conceptual framework and a coherent method for design in an organizational context within the participatory design tradition. The MUST method has been developed throughout 10 projects in Danish and American organizations, and it has recently been evaluated and adopted by 3 Danish organizations. The method is based on thorough participation with users and managers, and it combines the use of ethnographic techniques and intervention. The article describes the application area and perspective of the method, presents 6 general principles on which the method is based, and describes 5 main activities providing a stepwise decision-making process in the overall design process. Each of the main activities is illustrated by an example taken from our last project. The article concludes by summing up the main points.

Using ethnography in contextural design

In a design context the aim of ethnography is to develop a thorough understanding of current work practices as a basis for the design of computer support. A major point in ethnographically inspired approaches is that work is a socially organized activity where the actual behavior differs from how it is described by those who do it. This implies that detailed studies of work must include observations as well as interviews [for example 1, 4, 12]. Blomberg et al. [1] characterize ethnography with four principles and three main techniques: it takes place in natural settings; it is based on the principle of holism, that is, particular behaviors must be understood in the respective context; it develops descriptive understanding in contrast to prescriptive; it is grounded in a members point-of-view. They use as main techniques observation, interview, and video analyses.

Participatory Design at a Radio Station

We address design of computer support for work and its coordination at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. We propose design solutions based upon participatory design techniques and ethnographically inspired analysis within a full scale design project. The project exemplifies an ambitious, yet realistic, design practice, that provides a sound basis for organisational decision making and for technical and organizational development and implementation. We focus on cooperative aspects within and among the editorial units, and between editorial units and the editorial board. We discuss technical and organisational aspects of the design, seen in light of recent CSCW concepts, including coordination and computational coordination mechanisms, technologies of accountability, and workflow from within and without.

Challenges and Opportunities in Contemporary Participatory Design

At the core of Participatory Design is the direct involvement of people in the co-design of tools, products, environments, businesses, and social institutions. In particular, Participatory Design has developed a diverse collection of principles and practices to encourage and support this direct involvement. Many of the design tools and techniques generated to further this process have become standard practice for the design and development of information and communications technologies and increasingly other kinds of products and services. These design tools and techniques include various kinds of design workshops in which participants collaboratively envision future practices and products; scenarios, personas and related tools that enable people to represent their own activities to others (rather than having others do this for them); various forms of mock-ups, prototypes and enactment of current and future activities used to coordinate the design process; and iterative prototyping so that participants can interrogate developing designs and ground their design conversations in the desired outcomes of the design process and the context in which these will be used.1 Participatory Design has also pioneered and developed some of the basic research questions, methods, and agendas that have recently been taken up by design research in more traditional design environments (e.g., innovation through participation).2 Increasingly, participatory designers have sought to develop processes to enable active stakeholder participation in the design of the tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions in which these information and communication technologies are embedded. These widened contexts have been reflected in the themes of recent Participatory Design conferences and in the substantive focus of the research presented in them.

Sustained Participatory Design: Extending the Iterative Approach

With its 10th biennial anniversary conference in 2008, Participatory Design (PD) was leaving its teens and must now be considered ready to join the adult world and to think big: PD should engage in large-scale information-systems development and opt for a sustained PD approach applied throughout design and organizational implementation. To pursue this aim we extend the iterative PD approach by (1) emphasizing PD experiments that transcend traditional prototyping and evaluate systems during real work; (2) incorporating improvisational change management including anticipated, emergent, and opportunity-based change; and (3) extending initial design and development into a sustained, stepwise implementation that constitutes an overall technology-driven organizational change. Sustained PD is exemplified through a PD experiment in the Danish healthcare sector. We reflect on our experiences from this experiment and discuss four challenges PD must address in dealing with large-scale systems development.

Involving top management in IT projects

Aligning business needs and IT solutions with the problem-mapping technique.

Work-Practice Changes Associated with an Electronic Emergency-Department Whiteboard

Electronic whiteboards are introduced at emergency departments (EDs) to improve work practices. This study investigates whether the time physicians and nurses at an ED spend in patient rooms versus at the control desk increases after the introduction of an electronic whiteboard. After using this whiteboard for four months nurses, but not physicians, spend more of their time with the patients. With the electronic whiteboard, nurses spend 28% of their time in patient rooms and physicians 20%. Importantly, the changes facilitated by the electronic whiteboard are also dependent on implementation issues, existing work practices and the clinicians’ experience. Another change in the work practices is distributed access to whiteboard information from the computers in patient rooms. A decrease in the mental workload of the coordinating nurse was envisaged but has not emerged. Achieving more changes appears to require an increase in whiteboard functionality and a firmer grip on the implementation process.

Effects of electronic emergency- department whiteboards on clinicians' time distribution and mental workload

Whiteboards are a central tool at emergency departments. We investigate how the substitution of electronic for dry-erase whiteboards affects emergency department clinicians’ mental workload and distribution of their time. With the electronic whiteboard, physicians and nurses spend more of their time in the work areas where other clinicians are present and whiteboard information is permanently displayed, and less in the patient rooms. Main reasons for these changes appear to be that the electronic whiteboard facilitates better timeouts and handovers. Physicians and nurses are, however, in the patient rooms for longer periods at a time, suggesting a more focused patient contact. The physicians’ mental workload has increased during timeouts, whereas the nurses’ mental workload has decreased at the start of shifts when they form an overview of the emergency department. Finally, the secretaries, but neither physicians nor nurses, access whiteboard information on computers other than the permanent displays.

Participatory Design in Information Systems Development

This chapter deals with IT design in an organizational setting – be it a medium sized service company, a large industrial company, a small entrepreneurial knowledge company, or a public company or institution. In such work settings we often find a complex organizational structure, including several management levels, diverse professional groups, workplace cultures, and established working relations where new IT projects challenge the established ways-of-working. This is also the domain of ‘classic’ information systems development (ISD) approaches. This chapter presents the principles, key ideas, and experiences from using the participatory design method known as the ‘MUST method’, developed by the authors (Bodker et al. 2004).

Designing for cooperation at a radio station

We address computer support for work and its coordination in one of the radio channels of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Based upon ethnographically inspired analysis and participatory design techniques, we propose design solutions now implemented or under implementation. We focus on cooperative aspects within and among the radio channels editorial units, and between editorial units and the editorial board. Finally, we discuss technical and organisational aspects of the design, seen in light of recent CSCW concepts.