Participatory Design – Past, present (and future directions)
Speaker
Dr. Jeff Winter, a senior lecturer in informatics at Linnaeus University (LNU), Sweden, where he has worked since 2013. In the spring of 2013, he defended his PhD thesis, entitled “The Rocky Road: Why Usability Work is so Difficult”, at Blekinge Institute of Technology. Jeff is working mainly within graduate and undergraduate education, in subjects ranging from system analysis and system development, to subjects in the fields of human-computer interaction, interaction design, user-centred design, participatory design and ethics. His current research involves how to use and adapt Participatory Design when designing information solutions to solve the problems faced by small companies. He is also interested in studying how small companies, and their partners and clients, are affected by developments in the area of ICT, such as Internet of Things and Big data.
Abstract
The overall theme of the lecture is Participatory Design (often abbreviated as PD). PD concerns the direct participation of people in the co-design of the information technologies that they use. We will discuss PD in terms of its guiding principles, and the ethical standpoints that it espouses. We will look at the roots and history of PD, globally, but with particular focus on the Scandinavian context, beginning with its connections to the overall field of design. We will also look at the methods that are in use, which are an integral part of PD and its philosophy, and the way in which these are changing to reflect changes in technology and workplaces, and society at large, as artefacts have become increasingly complex and interconnected, and have moved out of the workplace and into our everyday lives. We will also examine the multidisciplinarity of PD, and the connections it has to other research fields and discourses, such as Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW), Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, and their related areas of usability and user-experience.
Date and Location
Wednesday Apr. 27th, 2016 10:30am – 11:30am at Jishi Building 434
