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1 Introduction

Participatory design (PD) discourse has only recently gotten around to addressing participation as a matter of it’s concern [1], and through this belated address it has been made evident that there is a need for PD to take responsibility for the concept of ‘participation’ in the design and execution of its methods. This paper builds on literature within the field of PD calling for participation to be a critically considered aspect of collaborative design projects and suggests another discipline that may assist with this task.

To discuss the concept of participation with the realm of PD, the discipline is first defined by its aspects and scope within the design discourse. Secondly, contemporary perspectives on participation are examined along with challenges encountered by PD practitioners in both research and practice. These challenges and perspectives combine in the discussion to demonstrate how challenges facing PD approaches are in fact issues of participation that the designer who wishes to utilize a participatory approach must address.

The principles and goals of anti-oppressive practice (AOP) provide a new perspective for PD to consider issues of participation. AOP emphasizes the understanding of power structures and interpersonal relationships within the field of social work [2] and draws a number of parallels with the emancipatory goals espoused by PD proselytizers. A brief overview of AOP allows the reader to reach a cursory level of understanding for their potential in PD.

The concepts of PD and AOP connect through what they can both offer one another in the face of their critics. With both disciplines acknowledging a need for greater reflexivity in their respective practice, there exists a potential for both disciplines to grow stronger through collaboration. The complexity and nuance of both disciplines calls for active collaboration between their respective experts across contexts and problem spaces.

2 Participatory Design

For the purposes of this paper, it is important to develop a contextual understanding of what entails a participatory design approach. Halskov and Hansen identified five fundamental aspects of participatory design (Table 1) that serve as useful criteria for judging whether an approach can be considered participatory. The various terms used to describe collaborative design processes such as co-design, co creation, and user lead design [3] can thus be grouped under the term participatory design so long as they encompass the fundamental aspects as laid out by Halskov and Hansen.

Table 1. Fundamental aspects of participatory design approaches [1]
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2.1 Participation in the Context of Participatory Design

Though there is no formally agreed upon definition for what constitutes participation in the application of PD methods, authors do tend to agree that the concept of participation is worth critical examination [1, 4, 5]. The purpose of this section is to examine the relevant literature and build a shared understanding towards the contemporary perspectives on participation in PD.

Borrowing from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) Andersen et al. place participation as a ‘matter-of concern’ within PD practice, pointing out that participation is dependent on the context of the project (partial) and that the outcomes of participation are synthesized out of necessity of their communication (overtaken) [4]. The example given by the authors is that of a case worker being interviewed as part of a design project. The children that the case worker has worked with are thus partially included through that interview, though their participation is overtaken by the case worker who synthesizes their experience. These key aspects of participation require that participation be considered on a project-to-project basis and designed for carefully.

To create an infrastructure around the discourse of PD practice and the issues of participation, Saad-Sulonen, Eriksson, Halskov et al. propose a temporal perspective on the matter [5]. They outline five distinct lenses through which PD practitioners may view the matter of participation (Table 2). Combined, these perspectives on PD show an increasing demand for PD practitioners to critically consider how they will design for, and view, participation.

Table 2. Temporal lenses for participation [5]
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2.2 Challenges to Participatory Design

The cross-contextual nature of PD applications adds to the complexity of understanding challenges facing participatory designers. PD approaches are used across a variety of contexts, including healthcare [6], design for people living with a disability [7], design for the 90% [8, 9], and business [10]. Each of these contexts naturally comes with its own barriers to participation and by extension, challenges to implementing PD practices. Luckily, the discourse on PD includes authors who have been brave enough to not only discuss, but to seek out barriers to successful implementations of PD.

Hussain, Sanders and Steiner noted four broad challenges to participation through their experience co-designing in rural Cambodia. These challenges include human aspects, sociocultural aspects, organizational aspects and temporal & financial aspects [8]. Their findings mirror those of Drain, Shekar and Grigg who found they had to develop several competencies within their participants in the developing world in order for effective codesign to take place [9].

Anti Pirrenen, synthesized a total of 20 barrier-enabler pairs impacting codesign spread throughout the service design process [11]. The concept of barriers and enablers was also utilized by Kleinsmann and Valkenburg who classified codesign challenges on an organizational level. Together the two papers highlight the importance of interdisciplinary communication, building mutual understanding, flexible methodologies, shared vocabulary and continuity friendly practice as key aspects of successful codesign projects in the realm of service design and business.

Traditional PD tend to require a level of cognitive and physical ability that may not always be realistic when working with people living with a disability. Hendriks, Slegers and Duysburgh note that PD practitioners who wish to work in these areas must heavily modify their methods to ensure they can be used effectively [7]. There is also a need for PD practitioners in this field to share effective, considered methodologies that take into account participation, ethical challenges and the adaption of existing techniques [7].

What the literature shows, is that regardless of context, PD approaches are by no means simple to implement. The challenges facing those who wish to engender stakeholder participation are numerous and inconducive to ‘turnkey’ applications of PD methods.

3 Anti-oppressive Principles

Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) is an integral element of social work practice, first originating in the 1970s [12]. Touted as a process based on the complexity of changing social interactions and relationships, AOP is concerned with addressing and mitigating power imbalances in the implementation of social work practice [2].

Table 3 outlines key principles for Anti-Oppressive principles as stated by Burke and Harrison [2].

Table 3. Key principles for anti-oppressive practice
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These principles are echoed by Potts and Brown, two anti-oppressive researchers who add to the discussion through their research-based lens and highlight that from their perspective anti-oppressive research is social justice and resistance in both process and outcome [13]. Anti-oppressive principles call for the recognition of knowledge as being socially constructed and a result of complex power structures and social relationships [13]. Critics of AOP call for a greater reflexivity in its practice and a further embrace of the complexity of human experience [12], though, as with any body of knowledge that has existed for some time, criticism is generally aimed at poor applications that have strayed from the guiding principles, rather than with the principles themselves.

To summarize, AOP is concerned with highlighting, acknowledging and working within the complexity generated by power imbalances, social networks and organizations. The parallels between the emancipatory goals of PD and the principles of AOP make a case for greater collaboration between the two bodies of knowledge and are further explored in the discussion.

4 Discussion

4.1 Challenges as Issues of Participation

The assumption that any method or tool denotes participation is dangerous, and demonstrates a lack of consideration for the ‘people’ and ‘politics’ aspects of PD. This paper argues that challenges faced by PD practitioners are in fact issues of participation. Accepting the ANT perspective on participation developed by Andersen et al. requires PD practitioners to consider participation on a project – to – project basis, and thus, tailor their methods to ensure they are capable of engendering project-specific participation. Table 4 outlines some of the challenges to PD as laid out in the literature and illustrates how they can be reframed as issues of participation.

Table 4. Challenges to PD reframed as issues of participation
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As demonstrated by the table, choosing a PD approach implies a responsibility towards the stakeholder’s researchers choose to engage, and by keeping participation as a central matter of concern, practitioners can better fulfill that responsibility. This, combined with selecting the appropriate temporal perspective from Table 2, allows for the PD practitioner to more responsibly address project specific participation. This focus on participants calls for a thorough understanding of the impacts of choices made when designing PD approaches, and it is here where the perspectives and principles of anti-oppressive social work becomes particularly relevant.

4.2 Anti-oppressive Principles to Address Issues of Participation

The principles of AOP as outlined by Burke and Harrison already begin to emerge when we reframe challenges to PD as challenges of user participation. Mere exposure to these principles is by no means sufficient to label a particular PD approach as ‘Anti-Oppressive’, but it does provide another lens through which practitioners can reflect on their own methodologies. Table 5 further illustrates this link between issues of participation and AOP principles.

Table 5. Issues of participation and relevant AOP principles
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Table 5 demonstrates how AOP expertise is directly relevant to addressing issues of participation that arise in the development of PD methodologies. It is unlikely that PD practitioners set out to oppress or further disenfranchise their participants. Rather, negative consequences of PD may arise when the designer does not treat participation as a matter of concern. Incorporating individuals with AOP knowledge in the design of PD methodologies may help to ensure that participation is treated as a matter of concern in a responsible and ethical manner throughout the project.

4.3 Bridging Through Reflexivity

Critiques and reflections on both AOP and PD have called for a greater reflexivity in the practice of both disciplines [12, 14]. In this case, reflexivity is the increased consideration of relationships, complexity and the power dynamics of knowledge structures in practice [14]. Where PD may be lacking in its understanding of power dynamics and social networks, critics of AOP have highlighted concerns with adherence to a lens that blocks out complexity in favor of a framework of oppression [12]. It may be possible then, that collaboration between these disciplines across different contexts and application may strengthen one where the other lacks and vice versa. PD approaches are well documented in their efforts to deal with complexity [4, 6, 8] and AOP is inherently concerned with understanding power dynamics and social networks [2, 13]. There is an opportunity for further research and collaboration in this direction, and the results of this collaboration may prove to be symbiotic.

5 Conclusion

This paper adds another voice to the participatory design discourse regarding matters of participation and suggests an interdisciplinary collaboration amongst the disciplines of PD and AOP. Designers must take participation into account when developing collaborative design methodologies and be constantly asking how they can act responsibly on behalf of participants. Introducing AOP as a discipline that concerns itself with the principles that PD must increasingly embrace serves as an introduction between two large schools of knowledge. Moving forward, PD and AOP practitioners may build further shared understanding and evolve both disciplines through a collaborative approach towards reflexivity between and within these disciplines.