Design project failures: Outcomes and gains of participation in design

Abstract

This article draws on data from a participatory design project developing services for online youth counselling. It investigates the outcomes and contingencies of participation for stakeholders and how they make sense of their experiences of participating in a design project. The findings show how counsellors involved in a design process develop new skills and knowledge as their roles and work practices change over time. The study is longitudinal, and addresses temporal aspects of participation, and in particular what happens when design efforts come to an end. It is found that a participatory design project that fails with respect to its explicitly stated goals may still have positive secondary outcomes due to engagement and process of situated learning among the participants.