13.1 Participatory Design

Participatory design is a process that first emerged in the 1970s across the Scandinavian countries that introduced the involvement and cooperation of trade unions (workers) and their managers, the wider community and the government.

Initially it was named as 'Cooperative Design' but was later modified to 'Participatory Design' when the idea travelled to other European countries as well as the United States.

This idea of cooperation between different types of people is transferred into the HCI world as being cooperation between the designer and the users of the final product and this is how participatory design has evolved.

Users know what they want in a interactive product and know how they will be using this product and designers know the technology behind the interactive product.

Putting both parties together in the design process will create a functioning interactive product that fully satisfies the users' needs and requirements.

Participatory design is a process which extensively involves the users.

This ensures that feedback from the users on any alterations to the interactive product is received very quickly by the designers.

13.1 Participatory Design

Also, the users' needs and requirements are swiftly heard and implemented by the designers.

However, this is sometimes considered as a disadvantage of using participatory design as users do not know what they want and frequency of change in demands and requirements is very high.

Also, an interactive product can have many different types of users and bringing them all together to be part of the design process can prove to be very expensive and time consuming.

This said, users, along with designers are involved in the design process, this involvement occurs through the following methods;

Brainstorming

Storyboarding

Workshops

13.1 Participatory Design

13.1.1 Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a method used by designers to generate as many ideas as possible.

All ideas are recorded, regardless of feasibility or relevance to the interactive product.

Once the ideas are generated, they are evaluated and the best ones are selected for further development.

In the design process for interactive products, this method is used at the initial stages of the process.

The participation of the users at this early stage is a vital part of the design process as the creativity and generation of ideas is not limited to the designers.

This method allows the users to generate their own ideas and voice their opinions in regards to the creation of interactive products.

As well as being used at the early stages of the design process, brainstorming is also conducted after the creation of prototypes which are presented to users for evaluation purposes.

Any problems or issues with the prototypes are then discussed by the designers and users and a brainstorming session is conducted to try and generate solutions for these problems.

Brainstorming can be viewed as a positive tool used in the design process to close the gap between the users and the designers as it allows the designers to interact with the users and facilitates the opportunity for extra creativity.

13.1 Participatory Design

As for the disadvantages, brainstorming is a method that needs to be flexible in terms of allowing the flow of creativity and rigid at the same time in terms of controlling and managing the brainstorming sessions.

This can prove to be difficult at times.

For example, brainstorming requires the participation of all the participants that present but this is not as straightforward as possible as some participants will be more vocal with their ideas than others and this can cause the less vocal participants to feel un-valued and their ideas will not be heard.

13.1.2 Storyboarding

Storyboarding is a method that involves the creation of sequential sketches that illustrate the interaction of the user with the interactive product.

It is a method that has been taken from the multimedia industry where the story of a film or a short video is sequentially sketched illustrating the various scenes of the film.

Storyboarding generally is based on previous written scenarios and personas developed by the designers.

The written scenarios are transformed into sketches and drawings.

Once the storyboard has been developed by the designers for the various interactions of the user with the interactive system, it is presented to the users.

13.1 Participatory Design

This provides the designers with an opportunity to examine the users' reactions to the sketches and gain a better understanding of any difficulties or issues the user may face when interacting with the interactive product.

The use of sketches instead of written scenarios is vital as sketches and drawings are easier to understand and absorb by the user, compared to reading text.

Another strength of storyboarding is that it can save time and money as interface designs and interactions are sketched on paper instead of being programmed and developed into a working prototype.

This is a cheaper option which allows any mistakes in the design to be highlighted by the users as well as the designers and as a result, an improved storyboard can be developed or a working prototype.

Also, storyboarding should not be a detailed sketch of the various interfaces and procedures of the interactive system.

They should only highlight the general look and layout of the interactive product as putting detail into the sketches can prove to be too time consuming.

13.1 Participatory Design

Using the 'train station' example from lecture 10, a storyboard can be produced highlighting the various interactions that take place in the scenario (see Figure 13.1).

"Mohammad is waiting in a long queue at the train station in the hope of purchasing a train ticket before his train departures.

While looking around the train station he spots a touch-screen interactive booking system that provides users with the facility of booking and printing their train station on the spot.

Due to him running late, Mohammad decides to try out this new system.

He is first presented with a screen that asks him for the category of the ticket (adult/child/senior citizen).

He chooses 'adult' then a new screen appears asking him his desired time of departure and destination.

After this he is prompted by the system to pay for his ticket and finally the ticket is printed out".

13.1 Participatory Design

13.1.3 Workshops

Workshops are a method used by designers to gain a better understanding of a problem that is commonly faced by users of an interactive product.

This problem or issue in regards to the interaction with the interactive product is in most cases known to the designers and the use of workshops is seen as a medium for users as well as designers to express their views and thoughts on issues of concern.

Workshops are class room based sessions where a more detailed appreciation of any problems and issues are discussed by the designers and users.

Generally, workshops are made of between 10-15 users and one or two designers.

In addition to discussing problems, workshops can be used as a means of discussing future designs, alterations or additions to an existing interactive product.

The designers would provide the users with a rough plan of how these new features for example will be achieved and the reasoning behind it and how this affects the user.

Workshops can be an effective method for interaction between the user and designer to take place in terms of gaining a better, clearer understanding of a problem faced by the users.

However, due to workshops being led by the designer (in most cases), his views and opinions may be biased and or not covering all the problems that need to be covered.

This can cause the users to become frustrated if their own issues are not being discussed.