Insights, Solutions and Empowerment: a framework for evaluating participatory design

ABSTRACT

Participatory design (PD) has become a popular approach used in a range of applications to generate a range of different outcomes. The defining strength of this approach is that it has potential to generate appropriate solutions while also empowering the involved community. This strength has resulted in PD being used as a method for developing humanitarian technology in developing countries. However, this diversity has made it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of each project, leading to criticisms that PD lacks empirically demonstrable benefits over traditional approaches. This article presents a new outcome-focused framework to assist in the evaluation of PD projects. The Insights, Solutions and Empowerment Framework draws from extant literature, and first-hand case studies in rural Cambodia, and attempts to provide a holistic view of the value PD offers, and important cross-cutting values to reflect on.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory design
• capacity building
• agriculture
• developing context
• evaluation
• humanitarian technology development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Agile Development Group, Light For The World Cambodia and Engineers Without Borders Australia for their collaboration and continued support for this project. We would also like to acknowledge the funding support provided by the New Zealand Aid Programme and the Australian Government, through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government [Australian NGO Cooperation Program]; New Zealand Aid Programme [Postgraduate Field Research Award].