1 Values - led Participatory Design as a pursuit of

Participatory Design (PD) is inherently concerned with inquiring into and supporting human values when designing IT. We argue that a PD approach that is led by a focus upon participants’ values can allow participants to discover meaningful alternatives – alternative uses and alternative conceptualizations for IT that are particularly meaningful to them. However, how PD works with values in the design process has not been made explicit. In this paper, we aim to (i) explicate this values-led PD approach, (ii) illustrate how this approach can lead to outcomes that are meaningful alternatives, and (iii) explain the nature of meaningful alternatives. We use a PD case study to illustrate how we work with participants in a values-led PD approach towards meaningful alternatives. Author Keywords Values, Meaningful alternatives, Participatory Design, Design ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION This paper is directed at designers of interactive technologies and HCI specialists who are interested in designing for human values. It introduces a productive approach to designing technologies that support human values – a goal pursued by many others such as Halloran et al. (2009), Lloyd and McDonnell (2009), Friedman and Kahn Jr (2008) and Nathan et al, (2008, 2007). However, this approach differs from them in that it offers ways of thinking and working with values to design IT within the Participatory Design (PD) tradition. While PD has an inherent concern for human values (eg. Frauenberger et al. 2015; Greenbaum & Loi, 2013; Vines et al. 2013; Iversen et al. 2010; Iversen et al. 2012; Simonsen & Robertson, 2012), how PD practitioners work with values, and what kinds of outcomes that can be gained through a values-led PD have not been made explicit. As such, this paper aims to (i) explicate this values-led PD approach, (ii) illustrate how this approach can lead to outcomes that are meaningful alternatives, and (iii) explain the nature of meaningful alternatives. We illustrate this approach by presenting and discussing a PD case study –Wizefloor– conducted in the educational setting where we worked with a range of values to pursue meaningful alternatives. In doing so, the paper contributes to offering one approach to supporting human values when designing IT. Meaningful alternatives Meaningful alternatives are possible outcomes of a values-led PD process used to design a digital artifact. There are two facets to these design outcomes. First: a material outcome – the (designed) product. Second: immaterial outcomes, best described as ‘transformations’ of the participants’ ways of thinking. Thus, besides designed artefact(s), possible outcomes include the potential capacity for people to reimagine their future use of technology with respect to particular values. For Ehn, design is all about – “the dialectics of tradition and transcendence” (1988). And when we engage people in dialogue with their values during design, we are in fact supporting them to discover alternative (transcendence) outcomes or futures that are meaningful to them with respect to their current practice (tradition), i.e., their existing practice(s) within the context of what is being designed. Because of this, the designed artifact(s) are more likely to fit well with people’s practices, potentially experienced as being meaningful during use, and is more likely to be embraced by those who are involved in this design process. Both material and immaterial outcomes are meaningful to the participants because the outcomes are developed from the participants’ own values during the design process and grounded upon the participants’ existing practice. The outcomes are ‘alternatives’ because through the design process, participants come to realize alternative solutions to the range of products that conventionally exist or are commercially available. Bødker (2003) alluded to this ‘alternative’ when she argued that one remit of PD practitioners is “not so much to build their [participants’] future technology but to help them realize Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. OzCHI '15 , December 07 1