1.
Jennifer Briselli
Managing Director, Experience Strategy & Design
@jbriselli
jbriselli@madpow.com
Participatory Design
Discovering Unmet Needs & New Solutions

2.
What is Participatory Design?
Why might you use these this approach in your own practice or organization?
How has it been successful for others?
What does it look like? How do you do it?
Overview

3.
“If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have
said faster horses.”
Henry Ford

4.
“If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have
said faster horses.”
????
?

5.
If asking people “what they want,” doesn’t work,
what are we supposed to do?

6.
What is Participatory Design?

7.
What it is:
An approach to design that invites all stakeholders (e.g. ‘end users,’ employees,
partners, customers, citizens, consumers) into the design process as a means of better
understanding, meeting, and sometimes preempting their needs.
What it is not:
• A variation on interviews or focus groups
• A way to “make your users do your job for you”
• A single prescriptive method or tool
• A rigidly defined process
• (see also: co-design, co-creation, co-production, collaborative design…)
• A holy grail
What is Participatory Design?

8.
Involving the people we’re
serving through design as
participants in the process.
What is Participatory Design?

9.
Credit: Liz Sanders

10.
Credit: Liz Sanders

11.
Design Process
DISCOVER
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council

12.
DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE
Design Process
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council

13.
DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE
Design Process
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council

14.
DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE FOCUS
Design Process
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council

15.
DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE FOCUS
EVALUATE
Design Process
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council

16.
DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE FOCUS
Adapted from “Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design” from UK Design Council
Generates design principles & direction
Generates viable solution concepts
Where does participatory design fit in?

17.
“Participatory design methods, especially
generative or ‘making’ activities, provide
a design language for non designers
(future users) to imagine and express
their own ideas for how they want to live,
work, and play in the future.”
- Liz Sanders
Why it’s useful

18.
For example…

19.
For example…
Users often talk about wanting to have an “easy to
navigate” site and “answers at their fingertips,” but
when they created imaginary screens, they focused
less on easy navigation and more on making sure the
interface would know the person viewing it and
remind them of key information, pre-empting
questions and the need to navigate much at all.

20.
Framing: Identifying goals, objectives, key questions, hypotheses
Planning: Planning activities that answer these questions
Facilitating: Ensuring & documenting productive participation
Analyzing: Making sense of it all to identify actionable insights
How to do it

21.
Framing

22.
Stakeholders, Co-creators, End Users
Challenges & Goals
Questions & Unknowns
Assumptions & Hypotheses
Choosing Activities
Framing

23.
Many types, many goals
• Trust Building
• Collaboration
• Narrative
• Generative
• Reflective
Choosing activities & methods

24.
Participants help us understand their needs via storytelling. These activities
are intended to elicit memories and help build empathy and understanding,
building trust and identifying opportunities along the way.
Examples:
• Journey mapping
• Love letter/breakup letter
• Collaging
• Empathy mapping
• Knowledge hunt
• Reenactments
‘Narrative’ activities

25.
Example: Collage
This activity helps members’ express their experiences and needs in a way words can
sometimes fail to describe. Participants will also put themselves at the center of the
map, which allows us to understand how members’ conceive of their own agency (or
lack thereof).
How:
Participants are provided a prompt and asked to spend 30-45 minutes creating a
collage that describes their feelings about the prompt. Participants are then asked to
share and discuss their collage. Facilitators may ask participants to elaborate to
better elucidate examples and opportunities.
Materials:
paper, images, glue sticks or tape, writing utensils, post-its

26.
Participants generate ideas and create prototypes of products, services, or
experiences
• Sometimes participants create viable solution concepts
• Sometimes participants create items that give designers insight & direction
Examples:
• Magic screen/button/object
• Interface toolkit
• Physical/paper/rapid prototyping
• Fill in the blank
• Ideal workflow
• Ecosystem mapping
‘Generative’ activities

27.
Generative methods uncover latent needs.
Image: Liz Sanders

28.
Example: Magic Object
Providing members with materials that allow them to engage in a making process
can provide insights about potential design solutions as well as uncover latent
needs.
How:
Participants are provided building materials and a prompt, and asked to spend
30-45 minutes creating the objects.
Participants are then asked to share and briefly discuss their creations.
Facilitators may ask members to elaborate on aspects of their explanation where
appropriate to elucidate examples and opportunities.
Materials:
Paper, construction materials, glue sticks or tape

29.
Participants make connections and judgments that help us understand the value
of potential design solutions. These activities help participants and designers
evaluate and understand the value of existing experiences or potential future
design solutions.
Examples:
• Card sorting
• Value ranking
• Storyboard/Concept speed dating
• Bodystorming/Gamestorming
• 2x2 Matrix
‘Reflective’ activities

30.
Example: 2 x 2
This activity helps customers’ express priority and categorization; it’s a way to
understand their mental model and allow customers to design ideal content
structures, information architecture, or other experience structures at the same
time.
How:
Participants are provided a labeled 2 x 2 grid and a series of words or images, and
asked to spend 30-45 minutes placing the words or images within the grid wherever
they make sense to the participant. They are then asked to share and discuss their
creation.
Materials:
paper, labeled 2 x 2 grid, images or words printed on cards, glue sticks or tape,

31.
The design prompt sets the stage and ensures participants will focus their
contributions on the goals, questions, or hypotheses you’ve identified.
For example:
“Use the items provided to create a perfect remote control.”
“Draw an imaginary classroom that provides all your educational needs.”
“Create a script for the ideal interaction between a nurse and patient.”
Design Prompts

32.
Planning

33.
Where: office, school, home, outdoors, in context
Who & how many: large group, small group, individual
Observation methods: notes, video, photo, artifacts
Materials: construction kits, legos, playdoh
Logistics: recruiting (>2 weeks), honorarium, volunteers, observers
Planning

34.
Facilitating

35.
Be prepared
Be yourself
Be flexible & adaptive
Be reflective
Be warm & friendly
Facilitating: Participation

36.
Document Document Document
• Dedicated note taker(s)
• Photograph
• Record audio & visual when possible (consent is key)
• Keep artifacts when possible
Ask participants to tell you about what they create
• 1 on 1
• Show & tell
• Share a story
• Write a commercial
• Create a pitch
Facilitating: Capturing Value

37.
What they create
is often less important than
how they describe its value.

38.
Analyzing

39.
Cut irrelevant or incomplete information
Get everything into a common format
Follow your instinct… analysis is as much art as science
Expect to spend at least 2 hours of analysis
for every hour spent facilitating.
Analyzing

40.
Raw Data
• Notes
• Photos
• Videos
• Audio
• Artifacts
Standardized
Data
• Spreadsheets
• Post-its
Participant
Clusters
Opportunity
Clusters
Theme/Affinity
Clusters
Identified
Patterns
Potential Output
• Focus Areas
• Design Characteristics
• Design Principles
• Solution Concepts
• Prototype Ideas

41.
Participant 1
Notes & Photos
Participant 2
Participant 3
Opportunity 1 Opportunity 2
Pattern 1 Pattern 2
Opportunity 3

42.
“If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have
said faster horses.”
????
?

43.
Instead of asking people to tell us “what they want,”
why not give them the language and tools to show us
what they want... Or even to create it themselves.

44.
Thinking about…
What are the most important takeaways for your organization?
What are the most important questions left unanswered?
Wrap Up – Q & A

45.
Jennifer Briselli
Managing Director, Experience Strategy & Design
@jbriselli
jbriselli@madpow.com
Thanks!