Proceedings of the 15th Participatory Design Conference: Full Papers - Volume 1

Abstract

Participatory Design is a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses and social institutions more responsive to human needs. A central tenet of Participatory Design (PD) is the direct involvement of people in the co-design of things and technologies they use and live with. The theme for Participatory Design Conference 2016 is 'Participatory Design in an Era of Participation'. Over 25 years after the first PDC in 1990, participation and co-creation have become essential features of design and research into technology. Living in an era of participation prompts critical questions around the goals and practices of involving people in diverse aspects of developing, redesigning and using IT. The distribution and promise of information technologies cut across emerging societal challenges at various levels. Sharing economy, crowdfunding and participatory cultures create new forms of engagement that challenge traditional ideas of participation. Public engagement in radical social innovation is used to address shrinking finances to public services, which has resulted in citizen-involving projects and labs in various domains. Maker technologies, notions of hacking and shared data, are promoting civic engagement with technology innovation that changes the material and socio-economic contexts of production. At the same time, centralization of the Internet, big data and large-scale infrastructuring challenge the core democratic ideals of PD.