Participatory Design: Principles and Practices
Participatory Design: Principles and Practices
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Following the currently popular gospel of design-driven innovation, many companies are attempting to implement some form of design thinking into their business process and company culture. What issues are they facing when trying to bring this into an organization, mindset and culture, that is not very receptive to design thinking? And how can they get access to and make use of the large number of user-centered design methods, tools and techniques that has been mainly developed in academia? In this paper these questions are adressed by reflecting on the case of an ongoing collaboration between a software company and a design school/research institute, aimed at supporting the software company making a move from a technology-driven to a market-driven, user-centered development process. The situation at the start of the collaboration is sketched, describing the challenges of how to introduce, apply and implement the design thinking approach into a business organization, that has by tradition a different perspective on how to innovate, a different set of methods, tools and techniques for developing products and a different culture of logics and values for assessment and evaluation. The approach taken was to gradually introduce this new way of thinking through a series of participatory activities, in which both parties involved actively contributed from their own perspective, yet with a shared goal. These activities are described in detail, followed by a discussion of their effects in both institutions. Although it is a long-term transformation, some clear changes that are already noticeable on various levels, are presented and discussed.