Participatory Design

“Including people… letting them identify and prioritize. Involve them in design.”

Participatory Design and the "Making" of Health | Joyce Lee | TEDxDetroit

Definition

Participatory design is about designing with people, not for people.

Context

Co-design

Procedure

1. Identify all relevant stakeholders in the design process.

2. Then, find ways to actively involve participants so that their voice is heard and their needs are understood.

Use Case and Analysis

I helped lead an in-class case study on participatory design. My case was about Dr. Joyce Lee, who encountered design on accident.

Due to her 6 year old son’s life threatening allergies, Joyce’s healthcare professional provided instructions for using an EpiPen. The instructions were long and confusing. So, in order to learn about his allergies and what to do in an emergency, she scripted a video which was narrated and illustrated by her son. Her video went viral and it later inspired more user friendly paper prototypes.

Joyce hopes this represents the future of healthcare with patients as experts, patients as makers, and patients as collaborators.

Joyce’s case highlights how participatory design can be:

• Quick, easy, and inexpensive

• Patient driven and focused

• Empowering to children

Joyce’s case did have some limitations:

• What about legality and issues with standard practices?

• This only involves one person’s experience.

• It does not address the need for a culture shift.

For an in-class activity, I had students critique current Electronic Health Records from different perspectives (healthcare providers, patients, and the organization). The goal was to get students to realize that design solutions change based on the stakeholder involved. Participatory design can use each stakeholder’s perspective to create a design that works for everyone.