Introduction

A few books, journals and articles I read and annotated on my quest to understand the Participatory Design process, methodology, and how aspects of it can be applied in a graphic design context.

Spinuzzi, C. (2005, May). The Methodology of Participatory Design. Technical Communication, 52(2), 163-174 (12)

The text aims to provide an introduction to Participatory Design by presenting a historical and methodological grounding for understanding it as a research methodology; its research designs, methods, criteria, and limitations from the point of view of a technical communicator. That being said the text provides a good starting point in understanding the WHAT and HOW of participatory design methodology with discussion about some practical applications that provide context.

Clay argues that Participatory Design is a way to understand knowledge by doing, this knowledge tends to be tacit in nature and is a key focus of exploration in Participatory design; He also puts forward that Participatory design’s methodology is derived from participatory action research i.e. practical interventionist investigations and parallel theoretical reflection emphasising co-research and co-design where researcher-designers come to a conclusion in conjunction with users.

Sanders, E. B.-N. (2002). User-centred to Participatory Design Approaches. In J. Frascara, Design and the Social Sciences: Making Connections (pp. 1-7). Taylor & Francis Books Ltd

Sanders offers, that the Post design movement/mind-set is characterised by an attitude shift from designing for users to designing with users.

I particularly find this chapter interesting because it provides an idea of how the role of the designer is changing and the reasons for that change. She proposes that the reasons for the attitude shift are; the participatory culture of today and new tools that focus on accessing experiences as opposed to the Traditional design research methods that were focused primarily on observational research focused more on what people say and think.

Sanders has produced many influential texts, used today for analysing the link between design and the social sciences including some mentioned in this bibliography.