New challenges for design participation in the era of ubiquitous computing

Abstract

Since the advent of participatory design in the work democracy projects of the 1970s and 1980s in Scandinavia, computing technology and people's engagement with it have undergone fundamental changes. Although participatory design continues to be a precondition for designing computing that aligns with human practices, the motivations to engage in participatory design have changed, and the new era requires formats that are different from the original ones. Through the analysis of three case studies, this paper seeks to explain why participatory design must be brought to bear on the field of ubiquitous computing, and how this challenges the original participatory design thinking. In particular, we will argue that more casual, exploratory formats of engagement with people are required, and rather than planning the all-encompassing systems development project, participatory design needs to move towards iterative, experimental design explorations to provide necessary understanding of today's complex contexts and practices. We argue that there does not need to be a discrepancy between the ideals of empowering people with new technology, and the understanding of customer value in a business perspective.

Keywords:

• participatory design
• ubiquitous computing
• community
• dentistry
• refrigeration

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the editors for their very thoughtful suggestions and for the framing of this Co-Design issue. We also are indebted to the participants in our design endeavours, without whom this research would not be possible. We acknowledge research contributions and helpful discussions with Brett Campbell, Tim Cederman-Haysom, Andrew Dekker, Jared Donovan, Ian MacColl, Fiona Redhead, Larisa Sitorus, Mads Vedel Jensen and Wendy Gunn. This work was conducted with support from ACID, the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design and the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP0210470. In Denmark, it enjoyed support from the USEC-consortium (User Supportive Embedded Configuration) funded by a grant from the Danish Research Council for Science and Technology.

Notes

1. This stands in contrast to virtual reality approaches in which humans enter the world of the computer.