My Brief Experience with Participatory Design

Having spent a year in Charleston partaking in the Community + Build program, I am probably more confused by this experience than I am informed on the nuances that are required to facilitate successful forums to gain community input. But this much is very apparent--community informed design is fragile, and requires a great degree of sensitivity, which the program in Charleston was definitely capable of, but what is also paramount to the success of true participatory design is that it needs adequate time. Actual effort to create and sustain real and meaningful relationships across community stakeholders takes a lot of time, and unfortunately we were barely exposed to this. If I were to be quite candid, I express uncertainty in being able to say that the program in Charleston is truly capable of effectively doing this--by the very nature of it being on a semester-based timeline, amongst other things.

Nieves always has a good point though

 

The difficulties of having essentially a “committee” for design input can certainly be taxing on all members involved. It’s an exercise on listening, without sacrificing productivity, specificity, and engagement. Alejandro Arevena, said it best in his TED talk, the key to these discussions is all about asking the right questions. It’s about trying to narrow down and be specific about what needs to be answered, so that answers can start streaming in. Again, we really only experienced this within the insular conversations of our own studio though, as the questions we were asking we were also the ones trying to answer. However--again--it’s a matter of logistical concern to be doing that with community members, so that a design team could be truly perceptive of their responses and respond accordingly.

 

Me, in community build, trying to ask the easy questions

 

More on its fragility--lack of leadership, unclear resolve, or ineffective management can degrade the ability to successfully partake in participatory design. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from this experience is as a whole--barring situations of dire demand for designing the environment (such as the Arevena’s example of rebuilding after a tsunami in Chile), the most significant contributor to the success of true participatory design I think is the ability to facilitate and maintain an environment in which people want to actively participate. This can be said of both sides of the table, designers and stakeholders. Failure to do so makes people disengage, the antithesis of participation.