Article

Whose participation? whose knowledge?: exploring PD in Tanzania-Zanzibar and Sweden

Authors:

Pirjo Elovaara,

Faraja Teddy Igira,

Christina MörtbergAuthors Info & Claims

PDC '06: Proceedings of the ninth conference on Participatory design: Expanding boundaries in design - Volume 1

Pages 105 - 114

https://doi.org/10.1145/1147261.1147277

Published: 01 August 2006 Publication History

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Abstract

In this paper we discuss two Participatory Design (PD) projects, one in Tanzania-Zanzibar and the other one in Sweden. In both countries the design process was done through the analysis of work practices involving both designers and users. The discussion focuses on a number of factors such as location, time and scene. We also ask how different projects can be that it is still possible to talk about PD as an overall participation and design approach. If PD is not a singular, definite, closed and fixed approach on the explicit layers, so how do these projects relate to each other when focusing on methods embracing the ambiguities of participation? The paper ends with a discussion of differences and similarities considering participation in the projects.

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Sukums FMangu CAnasel MWengaa DKitali EMboya IMunishi OKatalambula LKapesa AAmour MKumalija CKengia J(2023)Health Management Information and Evidence in Primary Health Care in TanzaniaPrimary Health Care in Tanzania through a Health Systems Lens10.1079/9781800623330.0006(124-154)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1079/9781800623330.0006
Aal TGrinko M(2023)Breaking New Ground: Stories from the WildTorn Many Ways10.1007/978-3-031-31642-5_10(139-152)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31642-5_10
Pilemalm S(2018)Participatory Design in Emerging Civic Engagement Initiatives in the New Public SectorACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/315242025:1(1-26)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3152420
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Index Terms

Whose participation? whose knowledge?: exploring PD in Tanzania-Zanzibar and Sweden
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management

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Reviews

Reviewer: Barrett Hazeltine

In participatory design (PD), users are involved in the design of a project. Two information technology (IT) projects are described in this paper: one is a hospital information system in Zanzibar, and the other is the improvement of e-government in Sweden. Both projects consist of joint analysis of work practices by users and designers. A full description is given of how the designers attempted to gain the trust of the users and learn their perspective. As expected, the projects differed in many ways besides location: accessibility of participants, reasons for participation, IT knowledge and culture of users, availability of electricity, and import tariffs. The key question is how to maintain the core purpose of PD-to encourage participation in the face of different experiences and knowledge. The research seems to indicate no universal rules exist. The strength of PD is in its capacity to be transformed by the situation at hand. One objective of the study was to find methods to support cooperation between designers and users, while keeping their positions separate. Again, effective techniques seem to depend on the local setting; what works in Sweden may not work in Zanzibar, but the objectives and philosophy of PD should be constant. Both improving the effectiveness of participatory design and allowing for cultural differences in a design are important issues. This paper has some illuminating points, but offers no strong guidelines on what to do. Online Computing Reviews Service

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PDC '06: Proceedings of the ninth conference on Participatory design: Expanding boundaries in design - Volume 1

August 2006

149 pages

ISBN:159593460X

DOI:10.1145/1147261

Conference Chairs:
Gianni Jacucci
University of Trento, Italy
,
Finn Kensing
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 01 August 2006

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PDC'06: Expanding Boundaries in Design

August 1 - 5, 2006

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https://doi.org/10.1079/9781800623330.0006
Aal TGrinko M(2023)Breaking New Ground: Stories from the WildTorn Many Ways10.1007/978-3-031-31642-5_10(139-152)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31642-5_10
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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3152420
Drain AShekar AGrigg N(2018)Insights, Solutions and Empowerment: a framework for evaluating participatory designCoDesign10.1080/15710882.2018.154064117:1(1-21)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2018
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The diversity of participatory design research practice at PDC 2002-2012

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The diversity of participatory design research practice at PDC 2002-2012

Giving a voice through design: adapting design methods to enhance the participation of people with communication difficulties

Personas, people and participation: challenges from the trenches of local government

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