Nicolai Brodersen Hansen

The diversity of participatory design research practice at PDC 2002-2012

We investigate the diversity of participatory design research practice, based on a review of ten years of participatory design research published as full research papers at the Participatory Design Conferences (PDC) 2002-2012, and relate this body of research to five fundamental aspects of PD from classic participatory design literature. We identify five main categories of research contributions: Participatory Design in new domains, Participatory Design methods, Participatory Design and new technology, Theoretical contributions to Participatory Design, and Basic concepts in Participatory Design. Moreover, we identify how participation is defined, and how participation is conducted in experimental design cases, with a particular focus on interpretation, planning, and decision-making in the design process. Five fundamental aspects of PD from classic participatory design literature.Five main categories of research contributions.We identify how participation is defined.We identify how participation is conducted in experimental design cases.

Participation as a matter of concern in participatory design

This article starts from the paradox that, although participation is a defining trait of participatory design (PD), there are few explicit discussions in the PD literature of what constitutes participation. Thus, from a point of departure in Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this article develops an analytical understanding of participation. It is argued that participation is a matter of concern, something inherently unsettled, to be investigated and explicated in every design project. Specifically, it is argued that (1) participation is an act overtaken by numerous others, rather than carried out by individuals and (2) that participation partially exists in all elements of a project. These traits are explicated in a design project called ‘Teledialogue’, where the participants are unfolded as networks of reports, government institutions, boyfriends, social workers and so on. The argument is synthesised as three challenges for PD: (1) participants are network configurations, (2) participation is an aspect of all project activities and (3) there is no gold standard for participation.

Odenplan: a media façade design process

In this paper we present an example of how to work with the challenges inherent in media façade design processes. We base the paper on our experiences from the creation of a series of design proposals for a media façade on the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden. We approach the question of how to design for media façades by discussing how we have structured our design process to address specific sets of challenges outlined in previous literature in the field of media architecture. In our view, such research is valuable in that it helps establish common ground for researchers and practitioners in a developing field by building a repertoire of approaches, as well as highlight important issues that need to be addressed in this emergent field.

An Argument For Design Space Reflection

We argue that documenting, revisiting and reflecting on the design space of a project provides three important benefits. First it increases our awareness of the constraints introduced by particular design choices. Second, this qualifies our understanding of the way a design space has been filtered by design activities. Third we are prompted to challenge these constraints and reconsider disregarded opportunities. To support this argument, we revisit key activities from two projects in our interaction design labs portfolio, selected because of the detailed documentation available. We also introduce SnapShot, the web-based tool we are developing for this method of design space reflection. Based on these examples, we present a critical discussion and outline areas of future research.

Crafting code at the demo-scene

This paper introduces the idea of craftsmanship as a way of understanding the shaping and re-shaping of code as a material crafting practice. We build our analysis on a qualitative study of a coder engaged in creative and expressive programming on an old hardware platform. The contribution of the paper is a set of conceptual categories: craft engagement, craftsmanship rhythm and craftsmanship expressivity, that conceptualizes coding as crafting.

Exploring the dynamics of ownership in community-oriented design projects

This paper contributes an exploration of ownership as a dynamic process in community-oriented projects. We use case study accounts of two design projects to consider participation in contexts where social structure is relevant to design outcomes. In studying these dynamics, we consider four aspects: what motivates ownership; how ownership transitions; structures to support ownership; and facilitating efficacy among participants. Specifically, we study the contribution of a Danish research team to the production of a media façade for a Swedish municipality and how British researchers engaged community groups in making internet radio podcasts to share insight. We examine the complexity of the social process involved and trace patterns of change, before concluding with pragmatic and ethical reasons for technology design to pay attention to ownership issues.

The early shaping of participatory design at PDC

For 25 years the Participatory Design Conference (PDC) has been concerned with the understanding and development of Participatory Design in theory and practice. The main contribution of this paper is an informed understanding of how the participatory design tradition formed the early PDC community and how the PDC communitys understanding of PD developed during the 90s. The paper presents an inquiry into the recurrent, fundamental aspects of participatory design, namely: politics, context, product, people, and method. Using politics as our point of departure the paper elucidates how the core aspects were shaped and developed during the first decade of PDC. The paper thereby establishes a basis for advancing how interaction design researchers position and discuss their research in relation to the roots of participatory design at PDC. In the papers concluding remarks we suggest how contemporary researchers can build on, challenge, and fill in gaps in the PDC communitys understanding of PD.

Design Tools and Materials in Creative Work

This workshop will examine and discuss the role and nature of design tools and materials in creative work, and explore how to meaningfully combine existing and novel tools to support and augment creative work. By exploring and combining methodological, theoretical, and design-oriented perspectives, participants will examine the potentials and limitations in current uses of design tools and materials, and discuss and explore when and how to introduce new ones. Participation in the workshop requires participants to document and analyse central themes in a case, and the resulting material will serve as the empirical grounding for workshop discussions.

Sociomateriality: Infrastructuring and Appropriation of Artifacts

This Studio offers researchers and designers an opportunity to investigate and discuss prototypes and in-process projects from a perspective that expands beyond material aspects, to also cover social and cultural ones. Participants will bring a project, device, or platform, which will be discussed as sociomaterials that actively participate across multiple social and cultural contexts. This perspective, as well as the prototypes and projects brought by the participants, forms the core of the Studio, where conversation will emerge over several phases: from the demonstration of the individual projects as things, to the generation of speculative fictions as to the role and use of these artifacts in the world. Finally, we end with a discussion of infrastructuring and appropriation of the artefacts and their social roles. The themes that will be examined in this Studio are agency, emerging behaviors, embeddedness and design strategies from a sociomaterial perspective of artifacts.