PDC 2002 — THE PARTICIPATORY DESIGN CONFERENCE

" Participation and Design
Inquiring into the politics, contexts and practices
of collaborative design work "

June 23. – 25. 2002 – School of Art and Communication,
Malmö University, Malmö,  Sweden

Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

In cooperation with IFIP WG 9.1, Computers and Work

Held in conjunction with DIS 2002, Designing Interactive Systems


CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Since 1990, the Participatory Design Conferences have brought together
researchers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and work
traditions, probing the social scope and practices of design of
technology. A core concern has been to understand how collaborative
design processes can be based on participation of the people affected by
the technology designed.

The involvement of users and the focus on human-centered design,
addressing the design of technology ’through the interface’, were
pioneered by contributions to the Participatory Design Conferences.
Debates within the participatory design community have contributed to
the development of a new  IT design field emphasizing simultanously the
need for thorough studies of the context of use, the relevance of an
open and participatory design process, and concern for the political
aspects of the technology in use.

Today the collaborative nature of the design process and the need to
involve a large variety of stakeholders has gained wider acceptance. At
the same time a fundamental uncertainty concerning the scope and
directions for the design of technology has created a growing interest
in innovative approaches to participation and design.

With the theme Participation and Design, the Participatory Design
Conference 2002 invites researchers, designers and other practitioners
to present inquiries into the politics, contexts and practices of
collaborative design work. We invite contributions from all design
fields such as architecture, urban planning, engineering, interaction
design and others (such as the fine arts) with a focus on understanding
collaborative design work.

Inquiring into the contexts of use is becoming increasingly important as
part of design work. Ethnographic approaches to field studies are
producing valuable insights into existing and emerging practices of use,
but the transition from what we learn from studies of work practices and
social interactions to the design of a system, application or other
design products remains poorly explored. Despite a well established
literature on such approaches as contextual inquiry, focus groups and
cooperative prototyping, the potential of participatory approaches to
design oriented practice studies is often neglected in ethnographic
approaches.

Altogether, collaborative design practices, although widespread, are
still not well understood. Design processes that are open to a large and
varied group of participants are lacking a firm grounding in analysis of
empirical studies and action research. How can the organisation of
design processes in time and space accomodate participation? What roles
do coordinating artifacts play in collaboration? How do design artifacts
serve as bridges or barriers to diverse uesrs, including users with
disabilities? What are the effects of distributed design processes on
patterns of participation?What kinds of dialogues are possible between
distributed design practices vs. local design practices and national or
regional cultures? How does the local design process relate to the
potential global outreach of the design?

The politics of design must address questions about what can be and what
should be designed. In a user-centered design process the distinction
between the designed artifact, the context of use and the process of
design may become blurred . Where does the design practice end, and the
practice of use begin? When the technology is becoming tailorable in
use, what is it then relevant to design for? How does participatory
design work allow for redesign and participation in use over time?

IMPORTANT DATES
1 February Due date for all submissions
15 March Acceptance notification to authors
1 May   Due date for Final Proceedings version for all written
submissions

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
Conference Chair ([log in to unmask])
Thomas Binder, Interactive Institute, Sweden
Programme Co-Chairs ([log in to unmask], [log in to unmask])
Judith Gregory, University of Oslo, Norway
Ina Wagner, Technical University of Vienna, Austria

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Liam Bannon, University of Limerick, Ireland
Jeanette Blomberg, Sapient Corp., San Francisco, USA
Tone Bratteteig, University of Oslo, Norway
Jacob Buur, Mads Clauson Institute, Denmark
Debra Cash, New Century Enterprises, Belmont, MA, USA
Todd Cherkasky, Sapient Corp., Chicago, USA
Andrew Clement, University of Toronto, Canada
Fiorella De Cindio, University of Milano, Italy
Yvonne Dittrich, Blekinge University of Technology, Sweden
Paul Dourish, University of California-Irvine, CA, USA
Pelle Ehn, Malmö University, Sweden
Frank Emspak, University of Wisconsin, USA
Susan Evoy, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, USA
Edla Faust Ramos, University of St. Catarina, Brazil
Susana Finquelevich, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Sapient Ltd., London, UK
Kim Fortun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
Davydd Greenwood, Cornell University, USA
Joan Greenbaum, City University of New York, USA
Bo Helgeson, Blekinge University of Technology, Sweden
Vidar Hepsø, NTNU and Statoil Research and Technology, Norway
Finn Kensing, The IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Sarah Kuhn, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
Kari Kuutti, University of Oulu, Finland
David Levinger, QpassTM, USA
Shirin Madon, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Peter Mambrey, Fraunhofer-FIT, Germany
Preben Mogensen, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Michael Muller, IBM Research, USA
Rob Proctor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Julian Orr, Work Practice & Technology Associates, CA, USA
Toni Robertson, University of Technology Sidney, Australia
Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham, UK
Doug Schuler, Evergreen State College, USA
Stephen Scrivener, Coventry School of Art and Design, GB
Yngve Sundblad, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Abimbola Soriyan, Obafemi University, Nigeria
Susan Leigh Star, University of California, USA
Lucy Suchman, Lancaster University, UK
Maureen Thomas, Cambridge University, UK; Malmö University, Sweden
Randall Trigg, The Global Fund for Women, USA
Coralee Whitcomb, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, USA
Volker Wulf, Fraunhofer-FIT and Technical University of Chemnitz,
Germany