Workshop on participatory design and the humanist landscape

Abstract

This workshop (held in conjunction with the UBICOMP 2015: The 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and ISCW 2015: The 19th International Symposium on Wearable Computers) will bring together researchers and practitioners to reflect on the use of participatory design methods, especially in the context of design for wellbeing. Delegates will reflect both on the user experience of being part of such methods, and on the design team experience, in line with recent calls for reflexivity in HCI. The workshop will enable delegates to situate their practice in the broader context of humanistic psychotherapy research, and implications for research methodologies and professional development will be discussed. Through a short series of talks, delegates will learn about attitudes and tools (specifically the Person Centred Approach and Interpersonal Process Recall) for reflection on team working and relational aspects of participatory design. The workshop will in turn contribute to the development of a person-centred framework for participatory and co-design research. This set of three talks reflects on the use of participatory design methods, especially in the context of design for mental health and wellbeing. In them we: introduce the Person-Centred Approach as a framework for conducting Participatory Design; outline the method of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR); and present a heuristic case study of these approaches being developed by a multidisciplinary design research team with Mind, a UK mental health charity. The aims of the workshop are to: situate Participatory Design practice in the context of humanistic psychotherapy research, and discuss implications for design research methodologies; introduce phenomenological attitudes and tools for reflection on team working and relational aspects of Participatory Design; and contribute to the development of a person-centred framework for Participatory Design research.