Participatory Design
I was recently asked which UX research method is my favourite and I immediately answered participatory design. I then went on to explain what it was, how it works and why it was my favourite. That initial conversation sparked the idea for writing this post.
So what is participatory design?
Participatory design originated in Russia and Germany, but flourished in Scandinavia where it was closely related to the workplace democracy movement. It has very political roots.
Sometimes referred to as co-creation, participatory design is an often under utilised research method and no matter what you call it, the basic aim is to support collaboration in the design process between stakeholders and users.
Participatory design lends itself to user-centred design innovation by bringing your users into the same room with designers, stakeholders and researchers to design and brainstorm ideas together. It helps to build a culture of user-centred thinking.
How to conduct participatory design
Participatory design can be implemented in a workshop format with users, stakeholders and designers paired together to discuss ideas or can be more one on one where you run collaboration exercises.
There are various ways to run participatory design but I’ll outline the ones that we prefer.
One to one
After contextual inquiry, bring the user and designer together to solve a design problem.
Define
Have a problem statement defined.
Recruit
Recruit 10 of your users for 1 hour sessions.
Plan
We usually run participatory design after contextual inquiry so we don’t need a warm up or breaking the ice time but you do need to talk them through the problem statement and allow time for them to understand this.
You can run any or all of the below exercises:
- Card sorting with pre-made cards showing words or images to indicate their priority and preference
- Brainstorm the problem
- Designer to wireframe a solution with the users help or vice versa
Synthesis
You’ll get a lot of different types of data so allow plenty of time to conduct synthesis so you can tell the story.
Workshop
Running participatory design in a workshop format has its advantages including, less time on synthesis, team engagement and deeper insights.
Define
Have your problem statement or assumptions defined.
Recruit
Recruit 12–16 of your users for a half day workshop.
Plan
Place a stakeholder and designer in a group with 3–4 users to discuss a problem/assumption. Allow them time to enter deep conversation and encourage them to write out their thoughts.
After 15–30 minutes of discussion, move the groups around so that they have to build upon the previous groups ideas. Four rounds of this is usually enough but will largely depend on your problem/assumption.
At the end, each group will present their findings.
Synthesis
You’ll need the stakeholders and designers who were involved in the workshop to be part of the data synthesis process. Work together as a team to piece the day together relying on the final presented findings.
Why we love participatory design
Involving users in our process is an ideal we always aim towards and participatory design allows for a more user-centred culture.
It increases empathy for the people who we are designing for and gives stakeholders insight into the research process.
“These are my own personal views and not those of Flutter Entertainment plc or its brands, subsidiaries or affiliates and are not otherwise made on its or their behalf.”
