This document discusses techniques for participatory design in user experience projects. It describes methods such as diary studies, collages, role playing, paper prototyping, and card sorting that actively engage stakeholders in the design process. The document also provides examples of how these techniques were applied in projects such as designing a student homepage and election workshops. The overall message is that participatory design approaches can provide deeper insights by allowing users to help shape the design through activities and tell their own stories.

1. WQusability.com
Whitney Quesenbery
whitneyq@wqusability.co
A Web For
Everyone
Giving users a place
at the (design) table:
Techniques for
participatory design
Whitney Quesenbery

2. 2
The big idea
Those who will use it
help design it

3. 3
The big idea: creating together
 Engages
stakeholders and
users in the
process
 Encourages
participants to
bring their
perspectives
 Focuses on
eliciting meaning to
inform design
http://experientia.com/perspectives/creating-togetherbuilding-value-with-participatory-design/

4. 4
Designing with the user, not for the
user
―Good systems cannot be built by design experts
who proceed with only limited input from users...
There are many aspects of a work process—such
as how a particular tool is held, or what it is for
something to "look right"—that reside in the
complex, often tacit, domain of context.‖
- Sara Kuhn and Terry Winograd
Profile of Participatory Design
in Bringing Design to Software
http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/14-p-partic.html

5. 5
Including the excluded
Roots in Scandinavia
and civic planning

6. 6
When computers entered the workplace
Roots in Scandinavia, with a
philosophy:
 Designers must take work
practices seriously
 Human actors rather than
systems
 Tasks in context
 Work is fundamentally
social, involving cooperation and
communication
http://codesignresearch.com/2012/09/03/spreading-the-participatory-design-approach-in-a-developing-country/

7. 7
Influenced design approaches in many fields
 Suchman and AI --
Situated action
 Brown and Duguid HCI
and knowledge
management -- Design
for learnability
 Kyng and HCI -- Situated
design
 Holtzblatt & Beyer – UCD
--Contextual design
http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/14-p-partic.html

8. 8
Charrettes address social and
civic design challenges
Exemplary participation can:
 Include the excluded
 Advance the state of the art
 Influence the outcome
 Deal with difference
 Engage the designer
 Integrate complex thinking
 Make place regional
What makes participation exemplary?
http://designobserver.com/media/pdf/What_Makes_Par_917.pdf
Project for Public Spaces – http://www.pps.org
Photo: http://safsrq.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/shs-charrette-sarasota-community-engaged-united/

9. 9
Current influences: Designing with
(not just for)
 Agile/Lean
practices
 Design studio
 HCI for
Development
 Design for Good
https://www.wickedproblems.com/2_building_empathy_by_designing_with.php

10. 10
There are limitations and pitfalls
 Don’t expect participants to be designers
 Or technology experts
 So, don’t ask the group to start from scratch
 Find people who want to participate
 But don’t let a few people dominate the design
 Read the results in a thoughtful way
 Focus on the underlying concepts, not the design artifacts
 Don’t assume people can predict what they might do
 Or that a design can (by itself) change a reality
Mobile Community Design: Effective Use Of Participatory Design Methods, Jeff Axup
http://www.mobilecommunitydesign.com/2006/05/effective-use-of-participatory-design.html

11. 11
Deeper understanding: unexpected
innovation
Participatory design
concepts in UX

12. 12
Design research:
Letting users tell their own stories
 Photos and
videos
 Day-in-the-life
 Scrapbooks
 Diary studies
http://www.globaldesignresearch.com/
Using video to create a story for each particpant

13. 13
Diary Studies:
Glimpses into lived experiences
Participants record their experiences
as they happen, over several days or
weeks
 Written notebooks
 Photos or video notes
 Phone it in
 Google Voice number
 Posting on a private site
 Basecamp, Blackboard
 Instagram or other shared
blogs
Dear Diary: Using Diaries to Study User Experience
by Carine Lallemand
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/uxmagazine/dear-diary-using-diaries-to-
study-user-experience/

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Kits for diary studies
(also called cultural probes)
Diary study kits can be as simple as a
notebook
 Create structure or open-ended
 Provide a camera or a way to
upload or print photos
Questionnaires and scales can provide
a consistent measure
 AttrakDiff mobile survey
 Medical pain scales
http://infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/culturalprobes/
AttrakDiff – www.attrakdiff.de

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Using social media
 Create a closed
group or monitor an
open group
 Listen and observe or
interact
 Closed or open
questions
 Sending reminders
 Use tools that are
easy and familiar

16. 16“Creativity Based Research”:
Eliciting context
 Collages
 Rich Pictures
 Games
 Role playing
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/uxmagazine/kidsteam/

17. 17
Collages: images for a rich description
 Explore
 Emotional landscape
 Relationships
 Cultural issues
 Design and style
 Interpret
 The discussion is more
important than the artifact
 Photo sources
 Flickr or stock photos
 Proprietary picture decks
http://3libraschild.deviantart.com/
http://www.ksrinc.com/r2r/download/r2r_projective_techniques_ppt.pdf

18. 18
Gamestorming:
New ways to get from A to B
1. Imagine the world – create a
temporary space
2. Create the world – within the
boundaries of the space
3. Open the world – but with
agreement on the boundaries
4. Explore the world – meet goals
within the world’s constraints
5. Close the world – ceremonial
ending at the goal

19. 19Informance:
Role-playing and improvisation
Representing an idea by acting
out scenarios to:
 Tell how things work (or
might work)
 Explain the interaction
 Share and explore the ideas
Good for complex or multi-
person interactions
Photo: http://stinelin.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/2nd-prototype-and-experience-prototyping/

20. 20
Co-Design:
Working with design artifacts
 Card sorting
 Paper prototyping
http://davids-user-centered-design-work.wikispaces.com/Paper+Prototyping

21. 21
Paper prototyping: rapid iteration
 Also called Wizard-of-Oz
 Combines design with
usability testing
Paper Prototyping by
Carolyn Snyderhttp://www.paperprototyping.com/what.html
Photo Courtesy Timo Jokela
The "Computer" highlights the item the user has just selected. A member of
the development team observes and takes notes. The facilitator (not
visible) is sitting to the right of the user.

22. 22
Agile Stories: personas + scenarios
Agile can be based on
co-design work with
stakeholders to create
stories

23. 23
Social media as a metaphor
Variations on ―design the box‖ using
social media to show relationships
 Make a Facebook page to
represent [this]
 Write the Twitter feed of a ―day in
the life‖
 Choose tools that the particpants
use

24. 24
Design studio
Design studio
makes it easy to
adapt to include
non-designer
stakeholders.

25. 25
3 mini case studies
Election design workshop
Student home page
If this site was an animal

26. 26
Election design workshops and
Open innovation competition
Charrette-like process to work
on a difficult, multi-stakeholder
problem

27. 27Workshop: collaboration and active
problem solving
 Brainstorm many ideas
 Build from inspiration to
concept to refinement
 Encourage inclusive, open
collaboration
Students created the posters
and worked as ―design scribes‖
http://elections.itif.org/projects/design-workshops/
http://elections.itif.org/reports/AVTI-003-Sanford-Milchus-Rebola-2012.pdf

28. 28
Open IDEO innovation challenge
3 of the winning concepts from the Open IDEO Innovation Challenge
http://www.openideo.com/open/voting/winning-concepts/

29. 29
Open University
Student Home Page
Building participatory design
activities into user research
sessions

30. 30
“Design a student-home page for you”
Step 1: Card sorting
We asked participants to sort cards
into topics:
 They have used in the past
 They might use in the future
 Not interesting/relevant
 Don’t know what it is
Work at the Open University for Ian Roddis, with Caroline Jarrett, Effortmark

31. 31
“Design a student-home page for you”
Step 2: Design your page
We asked participants use
the cards they have used or
might use to create a
personal home page.
 They worked on a sheet
of flip-chart pages
 Orange cards were links
to groups of topics cards
 They could write on the
paper
 They didn’t have to use
all the cards

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“Design a student-home page for you”
Step 3: Tell us about it
We asked participants to
walk us through the page
they created

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“Design a student-home page for you”
Step 4: Transcribed pages
We transcribed the pages
into digital files so we could
work with them more easily.
We were very interested in:
 Labels for groups of
cards
 Spatial arrangments
 Their stories about how
they would use the page

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If this site was an animal
Adding a quick question to
a usability test

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Summary
Three quick and easy ways to add participatory
activities to any usability test or research project
 Ask an indirect question for emotional reactions and new ideas
 If this site was an animal
 What if the rules were changed
 Leave time for storytelling
 If you ran the circus...
 Ask the participant to draw, markup, or assemble a picture
 What was the best... worst...
 Bring in a picture
 A picture of their classroom, or where they study at home

36. Whitney Quesenbery
WQusability.com
whitney@wqusability.com
usabilityinciviclife.org
Twitter @whitneyq
A Web for
Everyone
Storytelling for
User Experience
with Kevin Brooks
Global UX:
with Daniel Szuc
A Web for Everyone
with Sarah Horton