Participatory and ValueSensitive Design

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Participatory and Value-Sensitive Design
213 User Interface Design and Development

• Professor Tapan Parikh (parikh_at_berkeley.edu)
• TA Eun Kyoung Choe (eunky_at_ischool.berkeley.edu)
• Lecture 12 - March 13th, 2008

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Todays Outline

• Participatory Design (PD)
• In-class Future Workshop
• Value Sensitive Design (VSD)

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Participatory Design
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Participatory Design

• Emerged from strong labor movement in Scandinavia
  in the early 70s
• Shift from top-down, management-driven,
  rationalistic perspective to a bottom-up,
  democratic, humanistic perspective
• New legislation and policies provided workers a
  role in how technology was introduced into
  organizations
• Legislation was not enough to shift the balance
  away from the managerial perspective - this
  required the innovation of new design methods

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PD CD?

• Isnt this the same as Contextual Design?
• They share certain ideas and approaches, but the
  underlying emphasis is different
• Contextual design emphasizes understanding the
  context of work
• Participatory design emphasizes actively
  articulating problems and co-creating solutions
  in cooperation with users
• Other names for PD include Cooperative Design and
  Collective Resource Approach

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Landmark PD Projects

• NJMF - 1970
• Norwegian Metal Workers Union
• Kristen Nygaard
• DEMOS - 1975
• Swedish Trade Union Confederation
• Ehn and Sandberg
• DUE - 1977
• Kyng and Matthiasen
• UTOPIA - 1981
• Nordic Graphic Workers Union (NGU)
• Ehn, Kyng, Sundblad, Bødker
• Florence - 1983
• Nurses
• Nygaard, Bjerknes, Bratteteig, Kaasbøll, Sannes,
  Sinding-Larsen

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Scandinavian Culture

• Rich social democracies, relatively small
• Use technology to a large extent, very fast
  diffusion
• Small and medium sized organizations
• Equity and equal rights very important
• Democratic work life (employee representation in
  company boards, etc.)
• High percentage of trade union membership
• Protestant ethics

Source Tone Bratteteig, Participatory Design -
Scandinavian Tradition, 2003
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Computing Applications

• Enhance workplace skills, rather then degrade
  them
• As tools, applications should support work
  activities, not make them more rigid
• Organizational issues should be a specific focus
  of the design
• In addition to improving productivity, also
  improve the quality of work and results

Source Bødker, Grønbæk and Kyng Cooperative
design techniques and experiences from the
Scandinavian scene
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Involving Users

• Improve the knowledge upon which systems are
  built
• Enable workers to develop realistic expectations
• Reduce resistance to change
• Increase workplace democracy by giving the
  members of an organization the right to
  participate in decisions that are likely to
  affect their work

Source Bjerknes Bratteteig, 1991
Bjørn-Andersen Hedberg, 1977
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Participatory Design Process

• Recognize conflict
• Guided by designers
• Situated within user's work
• Encourage creativity and draw out tacit knowledge
• Simulate the future to aid in prediction and
  evaluation of design

Adapted from Patrick Williams
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Role of Designers

• Coordinate activities
• Facilitate discussion
• Prepare materials
• Advocate solutions

Adapted from Patrick Williams
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Case Study The AT Project

• National Labor Office (AT) in Aarhus, Denmark
• Country-wide labor inspection service
• Includes inspectors, administrative personnel and
  researchers
• Inspectors conduct health inspections, follow up
  on workplace accidents, and lead campaigns
  related to specific work hazards and/or
  industries
• Goal of this project was to decentralize
  application development and support
• Action Research - do research while making
  concrete contributions to the project

Source Bødker, Grønbæk and Kyng Cooperative
design techniques and experiences from the
Scandinavian scene
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Stages of the Project

• Workplace visits - understand current situation
  and work practices
• Future workshop - compile current problems and
  brainstorm potential solutions
• Organizational game - Envision possibilities by
  presenting new scenarios using mock-ups and
  prototypes
• Embodying ideas - Continue development by
  co-creating mock-ups and prototypes and by trying
  out new / modified work situations

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Future Workshops

• The technique is meant to shed light on a common
  problematic situation, to generate visions about
  the future, and to discuss how these visions can
  be realized
• Participants should share a set of problems, a
  desire to change the work situation, and the
  means to achieve that change
• Usually involves two facilitators, and no more
  then 20 participants

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Stages of a Future Workshop

• Preparation
• Critique - draw out specific issues and problems
• Fantasy - imagine how things could be different
• Implementation - figuring out how to make it
  happen
• Follow-up

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Critique

• Structured brainstorming about current problems
  at work
• Everyone gets a chance to speak
• Time can be restricted, for example, to 30 secs.
• Statements are recorded, and then grouped into a
  number of themes

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Fantasy

• Problem themes are inverted to generate positive
  ideas for the future
• No statement about the future is considered too
  extreme - if somebody wants it, its OK
• Positive visions are grouped under a number of
  themes
• Themes are selected to develop utopian outlines
  - idealistic visions of how things might work in
  the future

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Implementation

• Use utopian outlines as a starting point
• Envision the resources, systems and
  organizational changes required to make the
  vision a reality
• Plan how to access those resources, build the
  systems and gain consensus around the required
  organizational changes

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Organizational Games

• Act out alternate work organizations and
  confront the new problems that arise
• Using mock-ups and prototypes as props
• Metaphor of acting in a play
• Playground - the scene where the action occurs
• Roles - the parts that various actors play
• Situation cards - introduce particular breakdowns
• Commitments - actions taken by actors in response
  to specific situations
• Conditions - requirements for taking these
  actions
• Action plan - how to propose the idea to the rest
  of the organization and make it happen

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Cooperative Prototyping

• Prototyping provides learning not only for the
  designer, but also for the user
• Users can understand the potential of technology
  to impact work, and envision realistic future
  scenarios
• Users and designers cooperatively envision new
  designs, and inform each others perception of
  their practicality and utility
• The final result is not a surprise!

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Mock-up Design

• Mock-ups and lo-fidelity prototypes provide
  hands-on experience with new situations
• Everyone has the knowledge and tools (pens,
  scissors, etc.) to make modifications
• Everyone understands their limitations
• They can be made cheaply
• They are fun to use and modify

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Limitations of Mock-ups

• Changes can be time-consuming
• Hard to illustrate dynamic aspects of the
  interface
• Can lead to a disjoint between the design and
  technical possibilities
• Require someone to have a strong understanding of
  these possibilities

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In-class Future Workshop

• Redesign how iSchool students register for
  classes at UC Berkeley
• Critique - 10 minutes
• Fantasy - 10 minutes
• Implementation - 5 minutes
• Need one facilitator
• The rest of you can be participants

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Limitations of PD

• Requires close collaboration between users and
  developers
• Physical proximity
• Resources and time to support collaboration
• Difficult to overcome cultural, linguistic
  barriers
• Does not address distributed teams,
  Internet-based systems
• Requires strong organization of labor
• In Scandinavia, can rely on existence of unions
• In other places, unions may not exist, and
  workers may be fundamentally disempowered
• This makes it difficult to access the right
  users
• Users may not be comfortable with articulating
  their desires
• Users may be disappointed when their visions are
  not realized
• Not all systems are workplace-based
• What about consumer technologies?
• What about systems for fun, or communication?
• PD ideology can usually be adapted for dealing
  with these variations, but not all the formalisms
  carry over

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Value Sensitive Design
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Value Sensitive Design

• a value refers to what a person or group of
  people consider important in life
• Value-Sensitive Design is a methodology that
  explicitly consider the values of users and other
  stakeholders in the design process
• Developed by Batya Friedman and Peter Kahn at UW,
  along with other collaborators

Source Friedman, Kahn and Borning Value
Sensitive Design and Information Systems
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Practical Suggestions for VSD

• Start with a Value, Technology or Context
• Identify Direct and Indirect Stakeholders
• Identify Benefits and Harms for Each Group
• Map Benefits and Harms to Values
• Conduct a Conceptual Investigation of Values
• Identify Potential Value Conflicts
• When conducting interviews, ask Why?

Source Friedman, Kahn and Borning Value
Sensitive Design and Information Systems
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Important Values for System Design

• Human Welfare
• Ownership and Property
• Freedom from Bias
• Universal Usability
• Autonomy
• Informed Consent
• Sustainability

Accountability Courtesy Identity Calmness Trust Pr
ivacy
Source Friedman, Kahn and Borning Value
Sensitive Design and Information Systems
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For Next Time

• Guest lecture by Matthew Kam about his
  Participatory Design activity in rural India
• Readings will be posted soon!
• Next Thursday, Eun Kyoung and I will meet with
  each group to provide feedback on the project
  proposal and discuss your plans