CRITERIOS DE LOS COLOMBIANOS

Philosophical and Epistemological Assumptions

The ‘workplace democracy movement’, a manifestation of Scandinavian design in the field of information technology, emerged on the verge of widespread civic movements, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when people started to demand ‘an increased say in decision-making about different aspects of their lives and were prepared to participate in collective action around shared interest and values’ (Robertson & Simonsen, 2013).

Since then, ‘Scandinavian participatory design’ has been built upon the basis of ‘a tradition of respect and collaboration among diverse stakeholders’ (Gregory, 2009), focused on a commitment to promote engagement, and to assure that the people affected by the outcomes of design activities will have a critical role in the processes from whence these outcomes derive (Kyng, 2010; Robertson & Simonsen, 2013).

In logical alignment with its evolution from the civic activism of the workplace democracy movement and early information technology projects, PD has developed a tight and historical relationship with participatory action research, PAR, which has been acknowledged and discussed by a number of authors, including: Gregory (2003, 2009), Balka (2005, 2010, 2013), Pilemalm & Timpka (2009), Sato (2009), Harder et al.

(2013), Bannon & Ehn (2013); Dittrich et al. (2014), and Bødker & Kyng (2018). PD and PAR are action-oriented research approaches focused on promoting the empowerment and participation of stakeholders in the design of transformative changes to the ways in which people live, work and play, by making collaborative improvements to the objects, environments and systems that comprise human societies.

According to Brandt et al. (2013), participatory design is ‘not one approach but a proliferating family of design practices’. Differences notwithstanding, the core of PD, its

‘heart’, is participation (Brandt et al., 2013; Robertson & Simonsen, 2013). A working definition of this most fundamental aspect of all PD is found in Robertson & Simonsen (2012):

“Participation” in Participatory Design means to investigate, reflect upon, understand, establish, develop, and support mutual learning processes as they unfold between participants in collective “reflection-in-action” during the design process. Designers strive to learn about the practices and contexts of those who will use their designs, while end-users and other participants in the process strive to learn about possible technological options. Mutual learning throughout the process provides all participants with increased knowledge and understandings: Potential users about what is being designed; designers about people and their practices; and all participants about the design process, its outcomes and how both can influence the ways we live and the choices we can make.

62 The activity of participatory design is future-oriented, aiming at developing innovations in an open-ended, collaborative, situated way so as to promote better and sustainable sociotechnical configurations and improve the quality of lives of people (Dittrich et al., 2014). In doing so, PD produces new technology and new evidence that provokes changes to practice and procedures; and practice as planned is different from practice as performed. Both these factors speak to the need for a participatory approach whose underlying logic is one of appropriation, adaptation and improvisation by the people impacted by the emerging changes. In this process, ‘the identification and articulation of work and work-arounds’ are core to the examination of work-practice problems (Balka, 2013), so that people achieve higher control over their own work activities (Haines et al., 2002).

The importance of empowering stakeholders, by making sure they all have a say, is a core value of PD; which emerges, first, via recognising that design activity largely determines the socio-material configurations of society, thus directly impacting the daily lives of people. Secondly, PD advocates a democratic relationship between stakeholders who come together to collaborate, by exercising principles of mutual-learning and co-realisation and who assist in the making of future configurations.

Principles and Values

The overarching aspiration for enabling the participation of stakeholders in PD processes is driven by three defining values: having a say, mutual learning, and co-realisation. As established by Bratteteig et al. (2013), and Robertson & Simonsen (2013), having a say refers to the ability of people to impact decision-making processes with regards to their perspectives of the issues and their vision for the future; mutual learning enables a deep experience of exchange between participants, recognising that all involved have things to contribute with and to get from the collaborative effort; and co-realisation relates to the dynamic making of changes together, building on

complementary strengths and different types of expertise (Carvalho et al., 2017).

Complementarily, according to Gregory’s (2003) account, the principles that define (Scandinavian) PD include: ‘striving for democracy and democratisation; explicit discussions of values in design and imagined futures; and ways that conflicts and contradictions are regarded as resources in design’. All of these should be serving the

63 idea of co-creating changes to social practices (Gregory, 2003), looking at participation as a ‘culture of principled argument’ (Gregory, 2009).

This author illustrates her position with an example from the healthcare context (Gregory, 2009):

[…] the spirit of mutual learning and respect, shared understandings of constraints in specific contexts, and shared decision-making that includes frontline health care workers at the grassroots level in decisions about priority problems, informational content, norms, development of tools for continuous learning “where you sit”, the need to reinvent standard health indicators to adapt to material conditions, and realistic goal-setting […]

At the core of PD’s principles and values lies a preoccupation that people, such as frontline healthcare staff, will be engaged beyond the operational aspects that concern their practice, including issues of choice (decision-making) and agency

(empowerment). Such critical stance is seen as a fundamental factor that helps segregate PD from other user-centred-approaches.

Differences Between PD and other User-Centred Approaches

Analysing the writings of Kujala (2003), Bate & Robert (2006), Bossen et al. (2014) and Jun et al. (2017), it can be concluded that user-centred design, participatory

ergonomics and experience-based design (to cite a few) are approaches primarily focused on the development of tangible solutions for products, services or systems, via the observation of user needs, skills and behaviour, and the inclusion of user feedback and insights, mostly via consultative processes.

Kushniruk & Nøhr (2016) provide a comparative analysis, stating that the degree of involvement of users in design processes can be plotted over a continuum along which, on one end, users are the ‘subject of study’ (as in user-centred design), and on the other end, users drive the design process in ‘true participatory design’. This perspective furthers the view of Pilemalm & Timpka (2008) who previously emphasised differences in how varied user-centred approaches regard user participation; from being studied by designers to being ‘an active participant’ throughout the design process.

Due to its roots in movements concerned with amplifying the participation of people in society in accordance with democratic principles, PD is distinguished from other user-centred approaches by its philosophical and ethical aspirations, which give PD a political dimension (Gregory, 2003). As exemplified by Bratteteig & Wagner (2016),

64 unlike other participatory processes focused predominantly on tangible results, PD outcomes include an ‘ambition to increase workplace democracy’, and ‘changes that result from carrying out the [participatory] process, such as knowledge and skills, new collaborations and networks’. These concerns inform, equally, the overall approach to change, as well as method selection and tool creation.

Limiting or equating participation to consultation or involvement in task-oriented activities is a misconception, perhaps commonly used to clump PD and other

approaches together. Participation in PD has an epistemological dimension whereby principles of democratisation, emancipation and ethics are equally, if not more,

important than other pragmatic issues related to user involvement. Hence, according to Robertson & Simonsen (2012) PD ‘is not the same as “user-centred design”’, because

[…] the question of how participation is being negotiated and defined (and by whom) is fundamental to distinguishing Participatory Design from the more common user-centred approaches. Participatory Design projects are always driven by ongoing and systematic reflection on how to involve users as full partners in design and how this involvement can unfold throughout the design process.

This critical difference was previously emphasised by Balka (2010):

[…] whether or not the designs we contribute to show evidence of democratic ideals or work practices that are improved from workers’/users’ points of view—will also help PD practitioners distinguish our contributions from those championing participation for other reasons (e.g., user interests in the service of management controlled agendas).

And is also evident within the ethical concerns of PD outlined by Robertson & Wagner (2013):

Participatory Design, then, has as its core an ethical motivation to support and enhance how people can engage with others in shaping their world, including their workplaces, over time. This ethical motivation is not some optional extra to accessorise any understandings and specific practices of Participatory Design. It is its essence and structures its definition and ongoing development.

What emerges from this analysis is that studying users or studying how users interact and experience something is quite a different thing from having users become the agents of a change process, working side by side with the design team in agenda-setting, problem-definition, solution development, implementation and evaluation.

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Involvement

User involvement can be a vague notion (Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2012). Here, involvement is an encompassing concept that describes the direct contact of users with designers or with the design process (Kujala, 2003). In the above subsection, agenda-setting, problem-definition, solution development, implementation and evaluation were introduced as examples of circumstances where users and designers work together in participatory projects. This does allude to a continuous, active involvement of users throughout all stages of the design process (Robertson & Simonsen, 2012).

However, despite the principle of participation being the defining aspect of PD, for some, that does not imply that users need to (or sometimes even can) participate in absolutely everything ‘to contribute to a participatory result’ (Bratteteig & Wagner, 2016). A balance between idealism and realism is perhaps advised (Dearden & Rizvi, 2008), although that may sometimes appear as if PD is losing clarity and political teeth, and forgetting about its emancipatory roots (Bannon et al., 2018).

Nonetheless, what is clear in PD is the idea that designers and non-designers²⁶ or users will – somehow and to some extent – coproduce both the process and the results, suggesting ‘more of a partnership and shared leadership’ than mere involvement or consultation (Bate & Robert, 2006).

Involvement of Designers and Researchers

The involvement of designers and researchers can gravitate from a more directive role to more subdued participation; both these (and everything in between) constitute ways of being involved that are compatible with PD, so long as non-designers’ participation is, also, planned, facilitated and sustained throughout the project. More active ways of being involved include preparing and facilitating participatory processes and activities, and acting as ‘method experts’ (Jun et al., 2017) or ‘ergonomics experts’ (Haines et al., 2002).

Conversely, designers can still design and develop the process itself (rather than its outcomes or products), and, instead of acting as experts or active ‘doers’, assume a secondary, backstage role in the enactment of such process (Lee, 2008). In these cases,

26 This research adopts the following definition of ‘non-designers’, provided by Sanders et al. (2010): By non-designers we refer to potential users, other external stakeholders and/or people on the development team who are from disciplines other than design such as those in marketing, engineering, sales, etc.

66 the role of mediator, or someone that is overseeing and supporting but not controlling or leading the process, is assumed by designers and researchers (Dittrich et al., 2014).

Inescapably, the practice of participatory design is a practice of reflection-in-action.

Thus, a critical stance of particular sensibility and responsiveness to how stakeholders and designers are interacting, coproducing, and making decisions about what things are done, how and when they are done, and with what purpose, is always within the remit of designers and researchers working in PD.

Involvement of Non-Designers and Users

The involvement of non-designers, users, lay-people and stakeholders in PD projects is, to a greater or lesser degree, related to a particular understanding of the concept of expertise. In PD, all people are seen ‘as experts in their work domain’ (Robertson &

Simonsen, 2013) and early participatory design research aimed at the development of methods which could enable participation of designers and non-designers on equal footing (Bratteteig et al., 2013), so as to strive for an empowering, democratic process of change from the ground-up.

One of the most basic premises of involving non-designers/users in PD processes is to make sure a variety of relevant and representative perspectives will be addressed and thus, inform the outcomes achieved (Sanders et al., 2010). Users can further act as a type of ‘quality assurance measure’, helping the team to evaluate propositions, prototypes and simulations, or to raise questions about the assumptions behind the way things are and how they work (Damodaran, 1996). It has also been argued that users have a key, not a circumstantial or superficial, role in the development of design innovations (Kyng, 2010).

As PD evolves and stretches over new domains, new methods and approaches need to be developed to deal with the complexities of emerging contexts of participation (Kyng, 2010).

Ethical Dimensions

Some overarching ethical concerns of PD practice involve fundamental questions about the principles and approaches that define PD projects, which will, in turn, determine (or at least affect) the outcomes and impact of the projects. Robertson & Wagner

67 (2013) list four ethical aspects which are noteworthy: who to engage in the projects;

how to engage with the participants; how to represent participants and work practices;

and what can be offered to participants. Kushniruk & Nøhr (2016) later list added another aspect: where, referring to differences between projects conducted in the confinements of controlled experiments versus those carried out in real-world settings.

Moreover, Lee (2008) and, later Collins, Cook & Choukeir (2017), call for further attention to the extent to which participation in design projects translates into actual representation of the interests of varied groups of stakeholders, in order to avoid pseudo-participation or tokenism.

Participatory design works from the premise that technology development can never be a neutral process; ‘(a) technical solution is developed by someone for someone, and answers a particular problem, which is defined by someone’ (Bratteteig et al., 2013).

Hence, in the development of technological solutions, the extent to which certain perspectives or priorities – whether they are of a technical or of a political nature – will prevail over other possible alternatives, thus, largely determines how power and choice are translated into actual changes to the way the world looks like and works (Bowen et al., 2013; Bratteteig & Wagner, 2014).

PD is, therefore, underlaid by an inherent ethical stance since, first, it recognises that having a voice is not the same as having a say (Robertson & Simonsen, 2013; Bratteteig et al., 2013). Having a say implies impacting decision-making particularly regarding who is accountable for the decisions made (Robertson & Simonsen, 2012)and defining

‘what problems should be solved and how to solve them’ (Bratteteig et al., 2013).

Second, this ‘say’ is expressed directly when people describe, reflect upon and

represent their own work practices; a custom historically related to accomplishing the emancipation of people within political and social spheres (Robertson & Wagner, 2013). When corporate power seems to be co-opting design practices to favour

‘narrow, managerial interests’, the emancipation sought by PD needs to focus

particularly on ‘weak, marginalised groups’, and on broader public interests (Bannon &

Ehn, 2013).

PD has also walked hand-in-hand with Ethics by virtue of assigning primary

importance to situated, contextualised practice within work environments. According to this principle, people’s lived experience – as they put their values, effort, skills, time and commitment to the performance of professional practice – should take central role in the description, analysis and development of changes aiming to improve the

sociotechnical conditions that circumscribe and enable practice.

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Role of Contextualised Practice

The study of situated practice has long been a core concern of PD (Dittrich et al., 2014).

Rather than an abstract and regimented concept, practice, in PD, refers to ‘what people really do’ in context (Robertson & Simonsen, 2013). Situated, contextualised practice is, therefore, about meaning and value, possibilities and choices, not only about the

accomplishment of tasks. Practice is a specific cultural dimension of professional performance whereby issues of a technical and operational nature are mingled with issues of a social and philosophical nature; practice has a role in ‘shaping the world we live in’ (Robertson & Simonsen, 2013). Besides, practice can only be studied,

problematised and changed in a trustworthy way when users/workers themselves are involved (Bratteteig & Wagner, 2014). Substituting real practice by an approximate representation of it, described by someone other than the workers themselves, will distort the nature of that which is being actually examined.

With regards to the practice of healthcare staff, for instance, Kushniruk & Nøhr (2016) stated that:

Work in healthcare has always been closely dependent on advanced levels of knowledge, and the way in which professionals work is not always apparent. Work may be interpreted differently and work descriptions do not reveal all aspects of work practices.

Therefore, being able to participate in decisions that affect their work practice, is a fundamental aspect of participation for people within the context of an organisation (Bratteteig & Wagner, 2016), be it a particular healthcare institution, or the NHS in general.