Common methods

The methods used for PD can be aligned along the three-stage approach derived from participatory action research and suggested by (Spinuzzi, 2005):

| Stage 1: Initial exploration of work | Stage 2: Discovery processes | Stage 3: Prototyping | | --- | --- | --- | | Designers meet the users and familiarize themselves with the ways in which the users work together. | Designers and users employ various techniques to understand and prioritize work organization and envision the future workplace. | Designers and users iteratively shape technological artifacts to fit into the workplace envisioned in Stage 2. | | This exploration includes the technologies used, but also includes workflow and work procedures, routines, teamwork, and other aspects of the work. | This stage is often conducted on site or in a conference room, and usually involves several users. | Prototyping can be conducted on site or in a lab, it involves one or more users. |

Stage 1: Initial exploration of work

Walkthroughs	Organizational visits	Observations	Interviews
- Designers observe and interact with users or stakeholders as they navigate through a system or process.

Involve direct observation and can be conducted in various settings, such as physical spaces or digital interfaces. | Designers immerse within the target organization or community to understand its culture, context, and practices. This method allows for a deep exploration of needs, challenges, and values. Organizational visits often involve interviews, observations, and collaborative activities to co-create solutions. | Involve carefully watching and documenting how users interact with a system, product, or environment in their natural settings. Designers observe users' behaviors, actions, and reactions to gain insights into their needs, preferences, and challenges. | Involve engaging in direct conversations with users or stakeholders to gather qualitative data and insights. Can be structured with predefined questions or semi-structured, allowing for more open-ended discussions. |

Stage 2: Discovery processes

Organizational games	Role-playing games	Organizational toolkits	Future workshops
- Incorporate elements of play and game mechanics to engage stakeholders in the design process.

Designed to simulate real-world organizational scenarios.
Can take various forms, including board games, card games, role-playing games, or digital simulations. | - Involve participants assuming different roles and engaging in simulated scenarios or narratives.
Used to explore user experiences, understand perspectives, and generate ideas for design solutions. | - Resources or sets of materials that are designed to support and facilitate PD within organizations.
Consist of a collection of templates, worksheets, guidelines.
May include brain-storming, user persona development, user journey mapping, prototyping, evaluation frameworks. | - Focus on envisioning and shaping the future by engaging stakeholders in creative collaborative activities.
Facilitated session to explore a specific topic related to the future.
Stages: problem identification, visioning, idea generation, evaluation& selection, action planning. |

Storyboarding	Workflow models and interpretation sessions
- Visual storytelling technique helping to visualize and communicate design ideas, user journeys, or scenarios in a concise and engaging manner.

It involves creating a series of illustrations or images that depict the sequence of events, interactions, or user experiences within a design context.
Steps: define the scenario, break it down, sketch the frames, add annotations, sequence the frames. | - Workflow models are used to understand and analyze existing workflows, identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies, and collaboratively design improved processes.
Workflow models involve mapping out the steps, activities, and interactions that occur within a specific process or system. This can be done using visual diagrams, such as flowcharts or process maps, to illustrate the sequence of tasks, decision points, and information flows. - Interpretation sessions involve gathering stakeholders or end-users to collectively analyze and interpret the workflow models. During these sessions, participants discuss and share their insights, observations, and perspectives on the existing workflow. |

Stage 3: Prototyping

Mockups	Testing procedures and their documentation	Cooperative prototyping	PICTIVE
- Visual representations or prototypes of a design concept or interface. - They are created to provide a realistic preview of how a product, application, or website will look and function before the actual development or implementation phase.	- Involve systematically evaluating the design solutions or prototypes to assess their usability, functionality, and overall performance and documenting the results.

Key elements: test plan, test cases, test scripts, data collection, test results and analysis, reporting and communication. | - Involves collaborative and iterative development of prototypes by designers, stakeholders, and end-users.
The development of prototypes is not limited to designers or technical experts alone. | - Combines low-tech objects with high(er)-tech video recording.- The low-tech objects are non-computer representations of system functionality. - The video recording makes record-keeping easy, reduces social distance during the design session, and may give rise to informal video “design documents.” |

Proprietary methods

STEPS – Software Technology for Evolutionary Participatory Systems Development (Floyd, Reisin and Schmidt 1989) – was based on empirical studies of systems development practices and can be regarded as a methodological frame combining Participatory Design and software engineering with a focus on custom development of new software made ‘from scratch’. The STEPS process model is based on the insight that technical construction of software cannot be separated from its quality-in-use. Information technology design is understood as a design process shaping both the technical artefact and its context of use.

Figure 6.2 The STEPS model (Floyd, Reisin and Schmidt 1989). With kind permission from Christiane Floyd and Springer Science+Business Media

MUST (a Danish acronym for theories and methods of initial analysis and design activities) is a PD method that was developed by researchers from Roskilde University based on 13 projects with Danish, American and multinational companies over a time span of a decade (Bødker et al. 2004). MUST includes a conceptual framework for the PD process, emphasizing the need for a thorough problem setting during the early stages of design ‘that reveals goals, defines problems, and indicates solutions’ (Bødker et al., 2004, p. 13). Ethnographic studies of use practices are included, and formal or technical descriptions are deferred to a succeeding implementation.