Katrien Dreessen

Three strategies for engaging non-experts in a fablab.

Non-expert users are often impeded to enter digital fabrication spaces such as FabLabs. Challenges lie among other things in the unfamiliarity of tools and machines, a lack of skills and experience and the fact that most digital fabrication tools are not appropriated for non-expert users. Illustrated by case studies, this paper reports three strategies of involving non-expert users in a specific FabLab: (1) open door policy, (2) short term workshops and (3) long-term community processes. Through employing the Activity system model, we formulate five guidelines, including the insignificance of outreach merely through open days, the shift from outcomes to process, the role of the FabLabs machines, the embedment into the community through subjects (and their roles) and the combination of strategies. In doing so, we highlight the importance of community building for engaging non-expert users in a FabLab.

Building Capabilities Through Democratic Dialogues

Designers are increasingly involved in designing alternative futures for their cities, together with or self-organized by citizens. This article discusses the fact that (groups of) citizens often lack the support or negotiation power to engage in or sustain parts of these complex design processes. Therefore the “capabilities” of these citizens to collectively visualize, reflect, and act in these processes need to be strengthened. We discuss our design process of “democratic dialogues” in Traces of Coal—a project that researches and designs together with the citizens an alternative spatial future for a partially obsolete railway track in the Belgian city of Genk. This process is framed in a Participatory Design approach and, more specifically, in what is called “infrastructuring,” or the process of developing strategies for the long-term involvement of participants in the design of spaces, objects, or systems. Based on this process, we developed a typology of how the three clusters of capabilities (i.e., visualize, reflect, and act) are supported through democratic dialogues in PD processes, linking them to the roles of the designer, activities, and used tools.

Anchoring and transcendence: PD as an 'enabler' in quality of life

This paper links the concept of transcendence in participatory design with the discourse on quality of life and secondary gains. Secondary gains occur when a person with a disability reinterprets the disturbed balance between body, mind and spirit in their life and finds an enriched meaning secondary to the condition brought on by the disability. This re-interpretation can lead to an improvement of their perceived quality of life. This paper suggests that involving a person with a disability in a participatory design process might lead to transcendence, potentially resulting in acquiring secondary gains. We explored Bespoke Design, a participatory design project working with adults with type 1 diabetes in the creation of bespoke self-management tools. Evaluating the participatory design methods on the integration of anchoring elements and those of transcendence and how the interplay between those two elements lead to secondary gains, is central in our analysis.