Participatory Design

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Why participatory design?: Participatory design enables designers and developers to learn user needs and preferences through a facilitated group design process. With users in a participatory design session, product teams gain user input early in the process. The results are early design ideas that reflect user requirements.
What is participatory design?: In participatory design, a team of people who represent the stakeholders in a product design effort—users, designers, and developers—work together to create product designs that reflect the way customers will actually use the product. Group members use common materials such as sticky notes and markers. The facilitator refers to a list of topics, issues, and questions in guiding the session. The facilitator stimulates discussion and supports a dialogue among all the participants, ensuring that both planned and impromptu topics are covered.
What does it take?: Effective group facilitation—A facilitator skilled in managing group dynamics and experienced in design processes keeps the session on track and elicits ideas and comments from all members equally.; Time and place—Sessions can take place in your company’s offices, at Tec-Ed’s Midwest test facilities, or at a rented facility. Sessions are typically 90 minutes to 2 hours long. We usually need 2–3 weeks of planning, preparation, and participant recruiting before conducting sessions.