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