Computer Supported Cooperative Work 7: 167–185, 1998.

167
© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Participatory Design: Issues and Concerns

FINN KENSING1 & JEANETTE BLOMBERG2

1 Department of Computer Science, Roskilde University, Denmark; e-mail: [email protected];
2 Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA; e-mail:
[email protected]

(Received 2 March 1998)

Abstract. We characterize Participatory Design (PD) as a maturing area of research and as an
evolving practice among design professionals. Although PD has been applied outside of technology
design, here we focus on PD in relation to the introduction of computer-based systems at work.
We discuss three main issues addressed by PD researchers; the politics of design; the nature of
participation; and method, tools and techniques for participation. We also report on the conditions
for the transfer of “PD results” to workers, user groups, and design professionals that have charac-
terized PD over time and across geopolitical terrains. The topic of the sustainability of PD within an
organizational context is also considered. The article concludes with a discussion of common issues
explored within PD and CSCW and frames directions for a continuing dialogue between researchers
and practitioners from the two fields. The article draws on a review of PD and CSCW literatures as
well as on our own research and practical experiences.

Key words: CSCW, design professionals, participatory design, politics of design, sustainability

1. Introduction
Participatory Design is a maturing field of research and an evolving practice among
design professionals. PD researchers explore conditions for user participation in the
design and introduction of computer-based systems at work. The first international
PD conference was held in Seattle in 1990 and since then PD conferences have
been held in the United States every second year.? These biennial conferences were
preceded by conferences in Europe that focused on worker participation in technol-
ogy design.?? PD conferences have attracted researchers concerned “. . . with a more
human, creative, and effective relationship between those involved in technology’s
design and its use, and in that way between technology and the human activities
that provide technological systems with their reason for being” (Suchman, 1993).
Drawing on the papers presented at these conferences, international journals like
CACM, HCI and now CSCW have dedicated special issues to PD. Increasingly
? The proceedings of the PD conferences can be obtained by contacting CPSR at Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility, P.O. Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94392-0717, USA.
?? See e.g. proceedings from conferences sponsored by IFIP’s WG 9.1 and WG 8.2: Briefs et
al. (1993); and Bemelmans (1984). See also Bjerknes et al. (1987) from the Second Decennial
Conference at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
168 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

at universities and business schools in Europe and North America, courses and
Ph.D. programs are addressing issues in PD. The field continues to provide a
home for lively debates about appropriate and practical relations between work
and technology and about techniques for the analysis and design of such relations.
Since the early days of PD, computer-based systems have become more and
more integral parts of people’s work lives. Many design professionals and man-
agers alike are realizing that the skills and experiences of workers? need to be
present in the design and organizational implementation of computer systems and
the work they support. This, they argue, will help ensure a better fit between
technology and the ways people (want to) perform their work. Increasingly, the
results of PD research, in terms of an understanding of the relations between work
and technology and the tools and techniques applied, are being integrated into
design professionals’ resources for action. However, the concern for worker par-
ticipation in design that drives PD researchers has also been challenged in recent
years by economic conditions that predominate on the international scene, where
efficiency is emphasized over quality of work life and where the power of worker
organizations is declining. Looking for new ways of connecting with workers (in
addition to union participation) and new strategies for engaging managers and
design professionals in cooperative design, some PD researchers have begun to
reorient their efforts somewhat by cooperating with people situated throughout the
organizational hierarchy and not soley workers and their unions.
In the remainder of the article, we describe three main issues dealt with by PD
researchers: The politics of design; the nature of participation; and the methods,
tools, and techniques used in PD. We address issues dealt with in CSCW that relate
to PD and we conclude by calling for a continuing dialogue between researchers
and practitioners from the two fields.

2. Issues explored in Participatory Design

Three main issues have dominated the discourse in the PD literature: (1) the politics
of design, (2) the nature of participation, and (3) methods, tools and techniques for
carrying out design projects. These issues recently have been explored in relation to
the primary recipient groups of PD research, workers and design professionals. We
find it useful to think about these issues in terms of Gärtner and Wagner’s (1996)
arenas for participation. They distinguish between three arenas:
? We use the terms worker and user somewhat interchangably while recognizing that neither are
neutral terms. Worker can appear to exclude organizational members who are thought of as profes-
sionals (e.g. teachers, attorneys, doctors) as well as managers. By using the term worker, we do not
intend to exclude these workers. Users is also an ambiguous term with an overly technocentric bias.
The term orients readers to the relation of people to their machines although most people do not think
of themselves primarily as users of technology. In addition, the term users can reference people with
various relations to a technology and not simply the end-users. We have decided not to introduce yet
another term and will use the term worker unless we want to draw attention to individuals as users of
a technology.
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 169

1. Arena A: The individual project arena where specific systems are designed and
new organizational forms are created (ibid: 195).
2. Arena B: The company arena where “breakdowns” or violations of agree-
ments are diagnosed and hitherto stable patterns of organizational functioning
questioned and redesigned (ibid: 196).
3. Arena C: The national arena where the general legal and political framework
is negotiated which defines the relations between the various industrial partners
and sets norms for a whole range of work-related issues (ibid: 198).
At various times in the history of PD research there have been differences in
the emphasis placed on the three arenas of participation. The early PD projects
attempted to link Arenas A, B and C, with the aim of exploring local conditions for
workers’ co-determination as a basis for influencing policies at the national level.
PD projects during the last 20 years have shifted their focus somewhat to be more
centered on Arena A, the individual project arena. Recently, however, concerns
have been voiced that too few PD projects are engaged at the organizational or
company level (Arena B) (Gärtner, 1998; Kensing et al., forthcoming) and that
the PD community may have lost sight of the importance of participating at the
national legal and political level (Arena C) (Bjerknes and Bratteteig, 1995; Beck,
1996, Greenbaum, 1995).

2.1. THE POLITICS OF DESIGN

From the very beginning PD researchers have been explicit about their concern
with the politics of system design as it relates to the introduction of computer-based
systems and the distribution of power in the workplace. Over the years PD has
undergone changes and reconceptualizations concerning the nature of the politics
of system design. PD research began in the mid 1970’s in reaction to the ways
in which computer-based systems were introduced in the workplace and to the
deleterious effects these systems were having on workers (dislocations, deskilling,
etc.). The introduction of computers at work was seen as central to a growing
debate in Scandinavia and Germany about the place of industrial democracy in
modern workplaces (Arena C). At the center of the critique was the neglect of
workers’ interests – those most affected by the introduction of new technology. PD
researchers argued that computers were becoming yet another tool of management
to exercise control over the workforce and that these new technologies were not
being introduced to improve working conditions (see e.g. Sandberg, 1979; Kyng
and Mathiassen, 1982)
Workers and their unions were concerned that the introduction of computers
would reduce their control over their immediate work situation as well as the over-
all planning and administration of production. They saw that much of their work
was being de-skilled and decisions that once were under their control were either
being automated (build into the systems) or moved higher up the organizational
hierarchy. They feared that ultimately this would lead to workforce reductions.
170 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

Although laws and agreements were in place in many European countries that
mandated cooperation between management and workers over the introduction of
new technologies, in reality workers found few ways to influence the course of
technology intervention.
Researchers who were concerned that only the interests of management were
being served by the design and introduction of new technologies established rela-
tions with trade unions. The intention was to build up technical and organizational
competence among workers and shop stewards in order to strengthen their position
at the bargaining table (Nygaard, 1979).
This strategy to rebalance the power of workers and management was first
experimented with in Norway. The pioneering work of Nygaard and his associates
in the NJMF project (Nygaard, 1979) was the foundation upon which later PD
projects, the Swedish DEMOS project (Ehn and Sanberg, 1979) and the Danish
DUE project (Kyng and Mathiassen, 1982), were launched. The strategy included
a research agenda in which researchers and local trade unions explored the potential
and actual consequences of introducing specific computer-based systems into the
workplace (Arena A) and developed goals and strategies for workers and their
unions to pursue in relation to management’s technological initiatives (Arena B).
Finally, they helped formulate and advocate the adoption of laws and agreements
concerning union rights in relation to the introduction of computer based sys-
tems (Arena C). Soon other European countries were adopting this strategy and
developing it within their own sociopolitical context. The main assumption guiding
collaborations between researchers and workers was that if workers and their local
trade unions built up knowledge about the relations between technology and work,
formulated their goals, and developed local and national strategies for giving voice
to their interests, workers would be able to assert greater control over their working
conditions.
The results of these efforts included increased bargaining power due to better
informed shop stewards, strengthened co-determination agreements, and national
laws which guaranteed, to those who claimed their rights, information about man-
agement’s plans for new technology. In addition, articles were published and
theses written based on these projects leading to the emergence of an international
community of researchers focusing on the interface between technology and the
workplace.
In spite of the results of these early projects, workers continued to find it difficult
to argue for alternative ways of using technology, in part, because management’s
goals and strategies often were built into the new systems and were reinforced by
organizational distributions of power, making it difficult to alter the technology
to fit workers’ needs and interests. Researchers and workers were interested in
determining if it would be possible to design, develop, and implement technologies
which took as their starting point the needs and interests of workers. As Ehn (1993:
56–57) points out,
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 171

Societal constraints, especially those of power and resources, had been under-
estimated [in the early projects]. In addition, the existing technology presented
significant limits to finding desirable alternative local solutions . . . The main
ideas of the first projects, to support democratization of the design process,
was complemented by the idea of designing tools and environments for skilled
work and good-quality products and services.
The idea of designing tools for skilled work was explored in the UTOPIA project
(1981–1984) where the hope was that computer tools and environments could be
prototyped and built that would strengthen the position of labor in their efforts to
improve working conditions and quality of work life. Although, in the end, the
prototypes developed by the UTOPIA project never became commercial products,
new tools and techniques for worker participation did result (Ehn, 1989).
For years there have been heated debates between those researchers who argue
that the adversarial relation between managers and workers is unavoidable (collec-
tive resource approach) and those who stress the need for cooperation between
managers and workers (socio-technical approach). In the introduction to Com-
puters and Democracy, Bjerknes et al. (1987: 4) raise the question, “Are the
perspectives (collective resource and socio-technical) too different and have the
strategies diverted too far for a fruitful discussion of theoretical and practical
experience in the context of democratization?” They do not answer this question,
but based on an evaluation of many projects since, including those reported in this
special issue, we believe that this is not the case. In fact a strong argument can be
made that some degree of cooperation with management has been necessary for
the success of many PD projects.
In countries like the US, with a different socio-economic climate and where
debates about industrial democracy have not been as prevalent, researchers have
looked for other ways of pursuing participatory design agendas. Some researchers
built on the work of Braverman (1974), Noble (1977) and Winner (1977) in recog-
nizing that computer-based systems and the processes through which they were
designed and implemented tend to increase managerial control (see e.g. Green-
baum, 1976; Clement, 1994). Others, starting from a critique of specific techniques
used to create more user-friendly systems? (Blomberg et al., 1993; Holtzblatt and
Jones, 1993; Muller, 1993; Muller et al., 1995), developed strategies for direct
worker participation in decisions about the shape and character of technology inter-
ventions. Through these efforts and others, researchers raised the awareness of the
consequences of excluding the voices of workers in technology considerations and
experimented with new approaches for engaging workers directly in technology
design and implementation.
During the 1980’s the conditions for industrial democracy changed throughout
Scandinavia and Europe, including a decrease in the bargaining power of unions.
? Most usability techniques were developed for laboratory environments and were found to
be ill-suited for understanding the experiences of users with technologies in their everyday work
environments
172 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

These changes required PD researchers to rethink some of the assumptions and

strategies that characterized their work. In particular, they refocused their attention
on the rationales for participation and the ways differently positioned actors within
an organization could influence technology design and implementation (Blomberg
et al., 1997). We will return to this issue in the following sections.

2.2. PARTICIPATION

As mentioned earlier, many recent PD projects have concentrated their efforts in

Arena A, the individual project arena. In these projects users are represented in
project groups and steering committees and take an active part in analysis and
design, evaluation of standard systems, and organizational implementation. In part
because of a reduced focus on Arenas B and C, discussion in the PD literature
about the degree and types of participation required to bring about changes at the
organizational or national political arenas has been limited. As more and more
PD researchers actively renew their commitment to organizational and political
change, we expect to see an increase in published papers addressing effective
participation strategies for arenas B and C.
Clement and Van den Besselar (1993) in a review of ten PD projects in the
1970’s and the 1980’s reiterate three basic requirements for participation outlined
by Kensing (1983): (1) access to relevant information, (2) the possibility for tak-
ing an independent position on the problems, and (3) participation in decision
making. They add two additional requirements: (4) the availability of appropriate
participatory development methods and (5) room for alternative technical and/or
organizational arrangements. The participation of the intended users in technology
design is seen as one of the preconditions for good design. Making room for
the skills, experiences, and interests of workers in system design is thought to
increase the likelihood that the systems will be useful and well integrated into
the work practices of the organization. Of central importance is the development
of meaningful and productive relations between those charged with technology
design and those who must live with its consequences. PD researchers hold that
design professionals need knowledge of the actual use context and workers need
knowledge of possible technological options. The epistemological stand of PD is
that these types of knowledge are developed most effectively through active co-
operation between workers (and increasingly other organizational members) and
designers within specific design projects.
The assessment of which organizational members should be involved in tech-
nology design and implementation has changed over time. In the early days of PD,
the central concern was to increase the participation of workers and their unions or
those with little say over technological and organizational design issues effecting
the workplace. Managers rarely participated in these projects. Even today the role
of management in PD projects is often intentionally restricted. Some have worried
that management’s participation would silence the voices of workers and under-
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 173

mine the goal of increasing workers’ say over their working conditions. Bødker
(1996) reports that while managers participated in some seminars and meetings
during the course of the AT project, they were asked not to take part in a future
workshop for fear their presence would make employees reluctant to express their
views honestly.
Increasingly, however, people positioned throughout the organizational hier-
archy (including management) and with various relations to the technology design
effort are included in PD projects. Kensing et al. (1998) report on a project in
which the participation of managers, internal design professionals, and users was
considered a condition for the success of the project. Korpela et al. (1998) argue
for the need to involve community members who will be served by the system
under development and not solely end users. In a discussion of PD in consulting,
Gärtner (1998) reports that “Customers [those funding the project] will support
and pay [for the project] only if they consider risks involved to be acceptable with
respect to expected outcome.” In this case the involvement of the funding managers
is required to secure the resources needed for the project to move forward.
Participatory design projects have varied with respect to how and why workers
have participated. At one end of the spectrum, worker participation is limited to
providing designers with access to workers’ skills and experiences. The workers
have little or no control over the design process or its outcome. Here projects are
initiated at the behest of managers or design professionals. Workers are asked to
participate in those aspects of the project where their input is viewed as valuable
(e.g. description of current work practices and testing/evaluation of technology) but
left out of most technology-related decisions. This limited level of participation is
viewed by many PD researchers as insufficient to meet the goals of a participa-
tory design project. What is missing is a commitment to the possibility of real
worker influence over the direction and outcome of the technology design effort
(Greenbaum, 1996).
At the other end of the spectrum workers participate, not only because their
skills and experience are considered valuable, but also because their interests in
the design outcome are acknowledged and supported. Worker participation is con-
sidered central to the value and therefore the success of the project. Here workers
participate in negotiations over how projects are organized and what outcomes are
desired. They take an active part in (1) the analysis of needs and possibilities,
(2) the evaluation and selection of technology components, (3) the design and
prototyping of new technologies, and (4) the organizational implementation.
In many PD projects it is not possible for all those affected by the design effort to
fully participate. In these cases the choice of user participants and the form of par-
ticipation must be carefully considered and negotiated with relevant organizational
members, including management and the workers themselves. At times researchers
or design professionals suggest the type of workers needed for the project (e.g.
representatives of various occupational groups, workers with particular skills).
Alternatively existing worker organizations may identify project participants. In
174 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

the early trade union projects, the local union selected representatives from the
participating companies and the central trade union choose steering committee
representatives.
In making these choices, it is important to be clear about the motivations for
participation, the scope of participation, and the resources allocated for the project.
In addition, the relations between those taking an active part in the project and
those who do not should be carefully considered and attended to throughout the
project. Although as Bødker (1996) cautions “The collective experiences of par-
ticipation are often only for those directly involved in the project, and only while
the process is running” (1996: 217), establishing appropriate relations with other
organizational members increases the likelihood that the influence of the project
on technological and organizational change extends beyond the immediate project
group and endures after the researchers leave.

2.3. METHODS , TOOLS , AND TECHNIQUES

In addition to the political and theoretical explorations of participation, PD re-

searchers have developed practices that promote productive worker-designer coop-
eration. The early trade union projects were primarily concerned with developing
methods for participative analysis of relations between work and technology and
strategies for union influence over technology projects run by managers and IT
professionals (Sandberg, 1979; Kyng and Mathiassen, 1982; Ehn, 1989). These
experiences to a large extent led to the development of methods, tools, and
techniques in use today.
Mathiassen (1981) has introduced useful distinctions between methods, tools,
and techniques in his work on theories and methods for systems development.? For
Mathiassen a method has limited application areas?? depending on, for example,
the type of organizational and technological change desired or the number of peo-
ple involved. A method also provides a particular perspective??? on a phenomena
(e.g. an organization and its needs for computer support) and is composed of a
coherent collection of tools, techniques, and principles of organization. Following
Mathiassen we discuss principles of organization that characterize PD projects as
well as the rationale for employing PD tools, techniques, and methods.

2.3.1. Principles of organization

PD projects are often organized around the formation of work groups that carry out
many of the activities of the project. In addition, workshops are frequently arranged
? See Andersen et al. (1990) for a full discription. The distinction was originally proposed by
Mathiassen (1981) (in Danish).
?? PD has been applied in a wide range of application areas (e.g. the public and private service
sectors, manufacturing, local and centralized administration, hospitals, libraries, law offices, schools
and universities).
??? The perspective of PD research expressed in sections 2.2 and 2.3 also holds for PD methods.
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 175

where other organizational members participate. Some projects have steering com-
mittees who are kept informed about the activities of the work groups and who
may serve in an advisory capacity. Among the activities of the work groups are
developing a common understanding of the current relations between technology
and the organization of work, exploring new organizational forms, formulating
system requirements, and prototyping new systems.
Equally important to the principles of organization are the issues of resource
and time allocation. PD projects often take place in “greenhouse” settings where
projects are shielded from the harsher realities of organizational life. At times
special resources are allocated to the project. In addition, deadlines may be relaxed
and participants given time off from their daily work, allowing time for experimen-
tation. In these somewhat protected situations, researchers are able to experiment
with new approaches. However, to be effective in the long run, PD practices must
survive in “real world” settings with their limited resources, conflict and serious
time constraints.
Responsibilities and accountabilities also vary depending on how projects are
supported and initiated. PD projects have a variety of funding sources, including
corporate sponsors, government agencies, worker organizations, and consultancy
relations. There are also a variety of ways in which PD projects are initiated. At
times, PD researchers are contacted by organizations familiar with PD and inter-
ested in collaborating on a design project. At other times, the researchers make the
initial contact with an organization where a productive PD project is thought pos-
sible. Some PD projects are undertaken to explore specific technology possibilities
(Blomberg et al., 1996) while others have a more open-ended technology agenda.
When the technology direction has been established in advance, it is critical that
the participant organization views the proposed technology direction as valuable.
Finally, questions of how potential conflicts over appropriate systems develop-
ment processes and outcomes are negotiated form part of a project’s principles of
organization. Although not extensively dealt with in the PD literature, accounts
of delicate and sometimes difficult negotiations over design alternatives do appear
in reports on PD projects. For example, Simonsen and Kensing (1997) describe a
situation where a manager opposed the project because she felt the system being
designed challenged her authority.

2.3.2. Tools and techniques

Traditional approaches to system design make it difficult for users to see the con-
nections between their work and abstract and technically-oriented descriptions of
new systems. As Blomberg et al (1993: 146) state, these approaches “. . . provide
little opportunity for designers to learn about the everyday work practices of
potential users” and we would add for workers to learn about possible technology
futures.
The development of tools and techniques is a key focus for PD projects. Inno-
vative tools and techniques developed and extended in the context of particular
176 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

projects have become part of PD researchers’ repertoire for action. PD techniques

employ informal ways of presenting the relations between technology and work,
including visualizations (Brun-Cottan and Wall, 1995), and concepts readily acces-
sible to workers. The tools and techniques promote a practice where researchers
and design professionals are able to learn about users’ work, where both technology
and work organization are in focus, and where users are able to take an active part
in technology design.
Beginning with the early projects, researchers found it useful to review written
materials and observe current technologies in use. They held workshops where
workers discussed their experiences using existing technologies. The researchers
and workers visited other work sites to learn about alternative uses of technology
and jointly evaluated possible ways of intervening in and influencing the tech-
nology initiatives sponsored by management. In addition, researchers developed
courses, gave lectures, and supervised project work where technology and organi-
zational issues were explored (see e.g. Kyng and Mathiassen, 1982). In Denmark
approximately two thousand workers attended these courses from the mid 1970’s
to the late 1980’s and in many European countries similar courses were developed.
Newly articulated and better informed views about possible technology interven-
tions emerged from these interactions between workers and researchers that were
later expressed at joint worker-management negotiations.
In conjunction with establishing long term working relations with worksite
participants, questionnaires and interviews also have been used to gain a view
of the relations between technology and work across organizations. Increas-
ingly, ethnographically-inspired fieldwork techniques are being integrated with
more traditional PD techniques (Blomberg et al., 1996; Bødker, 1996; Beyer and
Holtzblatt, 1997, Kensing et al., forthcoming). The primary techniques of ethnog-
raphy include open ended (contextual) interviews and (participant) observations,
often supported by audio or video recordings. These techniques are employed to
gain insights into unarticulated aspects of the work and to develop shared views on
the work.
Complementing these tools and techniques for work analysis are those focusing
on system design such as scenarios, mock-ups, simulations of the relation between
work and technology, future workshops, design games, case-based prototyping,
and cooperative prototyping (Kensing, 1987; Ehn, 1989; Greenbaum and Kyng,
1991; Trigg et al., 1991; Mogensen, 1992, 1994; Blomberg et al., 1996; Grønbæk
et al., 1997). These tools and techniques avoid the overly abstract representations
of traditional design approaches and allow workers and designers to more easily
experiment with various design possibilities in cost effective ways.
PD projects often include the use of scenarios and mock-ups. Kensing et al.
(1998) use scenarios to describe new applications in relation to envisoned work
practices as a basis for deciding which applications and technologies to prototype.
Ehn and Kyng (1991) explore the use of mock-ups as a way for designers and users
to “experience the future.” They suggest that because mock-ups are inexpensive,
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 177

easily understandable, and allow a degree of hands-on experience, they are well
suited for early design explorations.
Grønbæk et al. (1997) advocate the use of cooperative prototyping where users
and designers collectively explore the functionality and form of applications as
well as their relations to the work in question. They state that, “To design coopera-
tively, to develop visions of technology in use, it is important to give these visions
a form that allows users to apply their knowledge and experience as competent
professionals in the process” (ibid: 217). This type of cooperation requires access
to adequate prototyping tools, and as pointed out by Blomberg et al. (1996) it also
requires the availability of workers’ actual work materials (case-based prototyp-
ing). Trigg et al. (1991) and Mogensen (1992) also emphasize how prototypes act
as “cytalysts” and “triggers” in discussions about the relations between work and
technology, and that these discussions lead to mutual learning.
Tools and techniques used in PD projects all have the common aim of providing
designers and workers with a way of connecting current and future work practices
with envisioned new technologies. They do this by giving participants access to the
concrete, lived experiences of designers and workers alike.

2.3.3. Methods
Developing a single participatory design method has not been the aim of PD
researchers. However, some groups have systematically organized their design
practices into a coherent ensemble of tools and techniques. For example, Grønbæk
et al. (1997) offer an approach, Cooperative Experimental Systems Development
(CESD) that, “. . . is characterized by its focus on active user involvement through-
out the entire development process; prototyping experiments closely coupled to
work situations and use scenarios; transforming results from early cooperative
analysis/design to targeted object-oriented design, specification, and realization;
and design for tailorability” (ibid: 201). Beyer and Holtzblatt (1997) have intro-
duced a customer-centered approach called Contextual Design that focuses on
early design activities. Potential users and other organizational members are inter-
viewed while they work to provide input to the product definition process. Kensing
et al. (forthcoming) have developed the MUST method, focusing on cooperation
between users, managers and internal IT professionals who are responsible for the
design and implementation of computer-based systems. Their method provides
concepts and guidelines for the design of coherent visions for change, includ-
ing technology, work organization, and the skills users need to perform their
work in the new technological and organizational arrangements. Blomberg et al.
(1996) describe a “work-oriented design” approach where field studies of work are
combined with case-based prototyping.
178 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

2.4. MAIN RECIPIENTS OF PD RESEARCH

The issues explored in PD can be viewed through the lens of the intended bene-
ficiaries of the research. PD researchers have a double agenda. On the one hand,
they are interested in designing useful, experimental technologies and practices
that are informed by interactions with worksite participants. On the other, they
are interested in developing more effective PD methods and practices that could be
adopted by professional system designers. As such there are two primary audiences
for their work: (1) the workers and other organizational members who will benefit
from the design project and (2) design professionals who may adopt participatory
design agendas and approaches. In addition, policy makers and decision makers
at the organizational and national level also are important recipient groups for PD
research. Arguments supporting particular policy positions (e.g. the need for US
labor involvement in technology issues, the value of worker participation in tech-
nology design and workplace implementation) can be strengthened by reference to
the experiences of PD projects.
Below we outline differences in focus of projects whose main recipients are
workers and design professionals respectively.

2.4.1. Workers
For most PD projects the primary recipient groups are workers and worker
organizations. These projects typically have two main goals:
1. Developing and evaluating design practices that support more effective
worker/designer cooperation and establishing the necessary conditions for
cooperation within an organization (process oriented).
2. Designing and evaluating work and technology systems that support the organi-
zation’s work activities (product oriented).
Workers benefit by having (1) systems that better fit the ways in which they (want
to) work, (2) more participatory design practices and methods, and (3) strategies
for successful integration of these new technology designs.

2.4.2. Design practitioners

In an attempt to propagate and sustain PD practices after the research project ends,
researchers have established participatory projects with internal design practi-
tioners. Working with design practitioners, PD researchers strive to embed PD
within organizations by developing locally articulated design practices and guide-
lines. These projects help design practitioners integrate PD practices into their
repertoire for action. One direction taken has been to adapt principles and tech-
niques from ethnography in ways that take account of practical and organizational
constraints on practitioners, but that go beyond traditional design approaches.?
? See e.g. Blomberg et al. (1993); Beyer and Holtzblatt (1997); and Kensing (1998) for ways
ethnographic techniques have been integrated into design efforts.
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 179

In addition, those working in academia, have integrated PD into their teach-

ing in the hope of changing the work practices of future generations of design
practitioners. Although as Kautz (1996) points out “The topic of participatory
design has not yet been a central interest in the context of formal education for
computer professionals,” developing curriculum for training system designers in
PD methods has been of concern since the early trade union projects (see e.g.
Kyng and Mathiassen, 1982). Today in Europe and North America a growing
number university faculty are developing courses and supporting project work in
PD. Although courses differ, students are acquiring an appreciation for the value
of worker participation in design and learning tools and techniques of participatory
design, including ways of understanding the use context. For a PD perspective on
the curricula debate see Bennett et al. (1992), Kautz (1996).

2.4.3. Sustainability of PD projects

Clement and Van den Besselar (1993) note that the experimental nature of most
PD projects often leads to small-scale projects which are isolated from other
parts of the organization. When the researchers leave, the participatory processes
seldom diffuse to other organizational entities. Two of the lessons learned from
their examination of PD projects are that “users must increasingly gain in their
ability and willingness to take on the roles of the animator(s)? . . . [and] a wide
range of actors outside a group must learn of the achievements [of the project]
and care about its survival” (ibid: 35). PD projects increasingly are addressing the
question of how to develop a local knowledge base that can help sustain PD as a
practice after the researchers depart (Bødker, 1996; Kensing et al., 1998, among
others). As Bødker notes, “What one does in a project is not only for the project,
but should place the organization in a position where the experiences can be used,
by the organization on its own, further on in time, and in particular with respect to
the future development of the technology (tailorability, etc.)” (Bødker, 1996: 220).
Gärtner and Wagner (1996: 212) also contend that for participatory design projects
to be successful designers need “. . . not only to analyze existing actor networks
but ultimately to redesign them in ways that help establish and maintain partici-
pative structures.” In the absence of changed organizational structures, it is likely
that once the researchers leave the scene the changed practices will be difficult to
maintain.

3. CSCW and PD
There is considerable overlap in the problems addressed by research in CSCW and
PD. In fact many individuals publish in both fields. However, there are differences
in the emphasis placed on their shared concerns of technology design, cooperative
work analysis, methods and techniques, worker participation, and organizational
? Animator is the role most often played by the researchers in these projects.
180 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

and political change. Still, at the heart of both is a commitment to designing sys-
tems (both technical and organizational) that are informed by and responsive to
people’s everyday work practices.

3.1. CENTRALITY OF TECHNOLOGY DESIGN

As noted by Schmidt and Bannon (1992), CSCW is a design-oriented research area

with technology at the center of the research agenda. Schmidt and Bannon (ibid:
11) state that “CSCW should be conceived as an endeavor to understand the nature
and characteristics of cooperative work with the objective of designing adequate
computer-based technologies” (italics added). They caution that social science con-
tributions to CSCW should be “. . . to explore exactly how insights springing from
studies of cooperative work relations might be applied and exploited in the design
of useful CSCW systems.” Grief (1988: 12) affirms that CSCW research should
address “. . . the question of how to design and refine good groupware – software
that will allow people to work together with the best help they can get from the
computer” (italics added). A great deal of PD research also is directed at designing
computer-based systems, but the explicit motivation for such design efforts is often
to strengthen workers’ control over their work lives and to create more democratic
work environments. Technology design is but one aspect of a strategy aimed at
achieving these larger workplace objectives.

3.2. SPECIFIC FOCUS ON COOPERATIVE WORK

CSCW has a specific focus on understanding the system design requirements of

cooperative work, where cooperative work is distinguished from individual and
other types of work. There has been considerable discussion in the CSCW litera-
ture about exactly what cooperative work should be taken to mean. Schmidt and
Bannon (1992: 15) assert in a lengthy exploration of various possible interpreta-
tions of cooperative work that the term “. . . should be taken as the general and
neutral designation of multiple persons working together to produce a product or
service.” And they go on to caution that this should not imply that the relations
among those working together be amicable or that the boundaries of the “group”
be clearly specified.
PD has made no attempt to demarcate a category of work called cooperative,
but instead has focused on developing cooperative strategies for system design.
There may be an implicit assumption underlying PD research that work, by its
very nature, is cooperative and therefore there is no need to distinguish cooperative
work from work more generally. Also because PD research is not centrally focused
on technology design, distinguishing between systems that support cooperative as
opposed to other types of work holds little value. For CSCW research, the result
of singling out cooperative work has been that the design requirements for overtly
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 181

cooperative work (e.g. joint authoring, distributed team work, etc.) has often been
the focus of technology development efforts.

3.3. DEVELOPING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

Although CSCW researchers have developed approaches to support the develop-

ment of CSCW systems, Schmidt and Bannon counsel that “. . . CSCW should not
be defined in terms of the techniques being applied.” (1992: 10). Conversely, PD is
defined, in part, by the techniques and methods used, namely strategies that allow
for the direct participation of workers in project definition and design specification.
A great deal of emphasis has been placed on developing and formulating these
methods and techniques so that they can be adopted by others.

3.4. WORKER PARTICIPATION

There is a commitment in CSCW that designs be informed by analysis of work

practice. While there is discussion in the CSCW literature about how to construct
productive relations between those doing work analysis and those designing CSCW
systems, there is no explicit commitment to direct user participation in design. In
fact, some have argued that it is too costly and logistically problematic to have
users directly involved in design (see Bentley et al., 1992; Hughes et al., 1993).
As an alternative, social scientists and others may act as user surrogates or repre-
sentatives in design discussions. In PD direct user participation in design is one of
the hallmarks of the field although as Mambrey et al. (1998) suggest, sometimes
it is valuable to augment direct user participation with what they refer to as user
advocacy.

3.5. ORGANIZATIONAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE

PD is not defined by the type of work supported, nor by the technologies devel-
oped, but instead by a commitment to worker participation in design and an
effort to rebalance the power relations between users and technical experts and
between workers and managers. As such PD research has an explicit organiza-
tional and political change agenda. PD conferences are characterized by lively
debates about whether the PD community has lost its way and has become too
focused on technology design issues at the expense of a concern for strengthening
workplace democracy. In contrast, questions of workplace democracy and political
change are rarely discussed on the podiums of CSCW conferences. Instead CSCW
conferences feature spirited debates about whether there’s too much emphasis
on technology design as opposed to workplace studies and visa versa. However,
Shapiro (1994) questions the wisdom and feasability of ignoring political issues in
CSCW design. He notes that, “. . . work and technology arrangements are changed
(invented) for instrumental reasons. Hence too there is a necessary politics of
182 FINN KENSING & JEANETTE BLOMBERG

design (ibid: 423)”. Although not often directly addressed in the CSCW literature,
politics often lies just beneath the surface of issues central to CSCW design (group
work, cooperation, distributed collaboration, etc.).

4. Toward a continuing dialogue between CSCW and PD

In many ways there already exists a strong dialogue between CSCW and PD
researchers. Here we want to suggest some possible directions for continued
interactions.

4.1. CSCW CONTRIBUTIONS TO PD

1. PD researchers may find it productive to integrate CSCW technologies into

their collaborative projects. For example, meeting support technologies might
be used in designer-worker interactions or media space technology might
be productively employed in PD projects where workers are geographically
distributed.
2. PD researchers could learn from CSCW studies of cooperative work about the
conditions for establishing cooperative relations between designers and workers.
3. PD researchers could follow the lead of their CSCW colleagues and begin to pay
more attention to the evaluation of technologies developed using PD approaches.
Even though the criteria for success may differ, a critical stance with respect to
the design outcomes could strengthen PD’s position as a viable system design
strategy.
4. PD researchers could learn about strategies for connecting studies of work and
system design from CSCW.

4.2. PD CONTRIBUTIONS TO CSCW

1. CSCW researchers could become more aware of the importance of understand-

ing that systems always exist in particular organizational and political contexts
and that these contexts shape what is possible organizationally and technically.
2. CSCW researchers could come to appreciate the benefits of active worker par-
ticipation throughout the design process and begin to adopt PD techniques for
such participation.
3. CSCW systems could be further developed in and adapted to particular organi-
zational settings using PD techniques.
4. CSCW researchers could learn about strategies for connecting studies of work
and system design from PD.
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN 183

5. Concluding remarks
In this introduction to PD we have only been able to touch briefy on some of
the issues and concerns that have engaged PD researchers and practitioners. We
know we have left out reference to important contributitions to the field. We hope,
however, that CSCW readers will be stimulated to examine the possibilities in their
own work for alternative, more participatory system design approaches and will
contribute to the ongoing discussion of the relation between PD and CSCW.

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