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/

14. 14
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

15. 15
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

32. 32
“Design a student-home page for you”
Step 3: Tell us about it
We asked participants to
walk us through the page
they created

33. 33
“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

34. 34
If this site was an animal
Adding a quick question to
a usability test

35. 35
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