Dimensions of Participation

Participatory design is a major orienting position in contemporary debates about design methods. In my own areas of research -human-computer interaction and computersupported co-operative work, it has transformed thinking about the role of users in the software development process. However, participatory design refers to a high-level feature of design methods that can be implemented in myriad ways. It is not a single and integral design method. In this paper, I discuss several dimensions of possible implementations of participatory design: domains of human activity — roles of stakeholders in a design, types of shared design representations, the scope and duration of participatory interactions, and the relationship of users to design activity with respect to changes in their knowledge and skill. I believe these dimensions have important implications for some of the fundamental issues that have been raised regarding the effectiveness of participatory design methods.