DIMENSIONS OF PARTICIPATION IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN

Only twenty years ago, participatory design (PD) seemed to North Americans a curious Scandinavian perspective. Today, it is widely employed in community informatics, and increasingly in commercial development practices as well. We survey PD from the standpoint of six dimensions of participation: participatory impetus, ownership, scope of design, nature of the participatory process, scope of cooperation, and expectations about learning and human development. Using these dimensions as a framework, we analyze several traditional and emerging models for PD: the original European model (illustrated by the Utopia project); the early North American model (illustrated by the PICTIVE method), and recent variations involving long-term participatory interactions oriented to role development; and an embedded participant model emphasizing facilitation of user initiatives. We discuss when and how various PD approaches are most useful.