Presented at HXD 2021

1. Jennifer Briselli
SVP, Experience Strategy & Service Design
@jbriselli
jbriselli@madpow.com
(Socially Distanced) 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? (Remotely, at that?!)
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

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

21. For example…

24. 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.

26. input: “For example if you have a prescription and you
need to know if it’ll be covered, you can put it in
there.”
If – Then Machine
camera: “So if you needed to speak directly to
someone on the other end.”
microphone: “So you can talk if you need to.”
keypad: “If you had other information you want to
type in; say, a doctor’s diagnosis.”
output: “Marching orders & various options you have
can print out here if you need them.”
screen: “Different options show up on screen.”

29. For example…
Co-design sessions helped us realize there is no prevailing
mental model; everyone looks for information differently
depending on individual preferences and context.
People don’t think about health insurance as a product; this is
why they struggle to understand the
traditional commodity based concept of coverage and
benefits. Instead, people think about health insurance as a
facilitator & mediator of their health experiences.

30. 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

31. 1. Let’s get acquainted with the Mural board. Take a minute or two
to zoom in and out, scroll around.
2. Add a sticky with your name on it in the Intro section.
3. Bonus: grab an image (from your desktop, or the web, etc.) and
paste it into the Mural board next to your name. Anything you
want.
https://tinyurl.com/briselliworkshop
First, some introductions: Mural

32. 1. Choose one of the three broad topics to focus on (see Mural).
2. Think about your personal experiences within the topic, and
identify one (or more) specific problem spaces, challenges, or
subtopics related to this topic. Write this as a “How Might We?”
“How might we improve...”
“How might we support...”
“How might we reduce...”
3. We’ll vote on one (for each topic) to focus on.
Mural Board:
Topic Selection & Problem Statement

33. Framing

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

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

36. These are a few great resources (not specific to participatory design but helpful in planning activities nonetheless).
You can also find more resources from Liz Sanders on her site: maketools.com

37. 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
• Reenactments
• Circles of me
‘Narrative’ activities

40. 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
• Physical/paper/rapid prototyping
• Fill in the blank/mad libs
• Ideal workflow mapping
• Ecosystem/influence mapping
‘Generative’ activities

44. 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

47. 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 patient and doctor.”
“Build a collage that best represents how you feel about retirement saving.”
Design Prompts

48. 1. Revisit the topic problem statement you’d like to focus on.
Imagine you are planning a session to explore this problem
statement.
2. Write a design prompt for participants in an imaginary session
to engage in a collaging activity.
3. We’ll vote or select one design prompt for each problem
statement. (Later we’ll try an abbreviated virtual version to see
how well they work).
Ex: “What does preventative care look like to you right now?”
Ex: “What does finding a therapist feel like to you?”
Framing: Let’s Try It

49. Example: Collage Activity
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 people conceive of
their own agency (or lack thereof).
How:
Participants are provided a prompt and asked to create a collage that describes
their feelings and experiences 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

50. Planning

51. Where: office, school, home, outdoors, in context
…or during a global pandemic, 100% virtual…
Who & how many: large group, small group, individual
Observation methods: notes, video, photo, artifacts, email/text…
Materials: construction kits, legos, playdoh, crafting supplies
Logistics: recruiting (>2 weeks), honorarium, note takers, mailing materials…
Planning

56.  Keep it simple: The less tech the better. The less complicated the agenda, the better.
Tools like Mural can be great, but for a lot of folks it just adds noise. Consider your
audience: How tech savvy are they? How important is a group session vs. a 1-on-1 for
the topic? Etc.
 Design begins at recruitment: Screen for participants who have a camera and will
be comfortable turning them on during the session. Share a one-sheet summary with
recruiters that outlines what will be expected of participants, (e.g. installing screen
sharing software in advance, familiarizing themselves with Mural, completing any pre-
work).
Remote / Virtual Considerations

57.  The at-home experience: Send kits with physical materials for generative activities
that would normally happen in person. Ask people to do some pre-work if
appropriate. Include fun items like snacks or small trinkets along with detailed
instructions. Indicate that everything was packed with gloves, sanitized, etc. Design
this process like you work for Disney and are sending participants their magic
bracelets.
 Flexible logistics: Consider two shorter sessions with homework in between vs. one
long virtual session. Screens are energy-draining. Leverage smartphones or digital
journal platforms where appropriate for collection of artifacts. Consider 1-on-1 (or
smaller than normal) sessions. Plan for everything to take longer and with reduced
depth.
 Plan for the worst: Have backup plans if kits don’t arrive, e.g. good ol’ pen and
paper, screenshare with pre-made canvases, etc…
Remote / Virtual Considerations

62. TL;DR
Design the remote participant experience as carefully and
thoughtfully as you’d design any other user experience,
product, or service.
Remote / Virtual Considerations

63. Facilitating

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

65. Document Document Document
• Dedicated note taker(s)
• Photograph
• Record audio & visual when possible (consent is key)
• Keep artifacts when possible
• Virtual: ask participants to email or text photos of what they create
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

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

67. Let’s Try It
1. Choose one design prompt to follow. In your personal space on
the Mural board, find 3-5 images from the left side Mural image
search, or paste from your computer or Google image search,
and paste them in to make a mini virtual collage in response to
the prompt.
2. As a group we’ll ask for a volunteer to explain their creation to
demonstrate facilitation.

68. Analyzing

69. 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

75. Raw Data
• Notes
• Photos
• Videos
• Audio
• Artifacts
Standardized
Data
• Spreadsheets
• Post-its / Mural
Participant
Clusters
Opportunity
Clusters
Theme/Affinity
Clusters
Identified
Patterns
Potential Output
• Future Focus Areas
• Design Principles
• Features & Characteristics
• Solution Concepts
• Prototypes

76. What are the most important takeaways for your organization?
What are the most important questions we left unanswered?
What are the aspects you are most and least confident about
implementing in your own practice?
Wrap Up / Q & A

77. Jennifer Briselli
SVP, Experience Strategy & Service Design
@jbriselli
jbriselli@madpow.com
Thanks!