A critique on participatory design in developmental context: A case study

Abstract

The dimensions of understanding and involving users and their context while constructing a system have become important. Participatory Design has shown promising success in recent times. The concept of Participatory Design originates from developed countries [11, 13, 16, 17]. Its nature and methods are more oriented toward the Western setting where there is more privilege in terms of economy, education, and technology and a different socio-economic context. However, in the Developmental context, these presumptions may operate differently. In this paper, we critique the operationalization of Participatory Design in a healthcare case study in a developmental context. The study was conducted in urban-poor areas in a metropolitan city in India with 5 users individually, by a Designer and Public Health policy student. All users were recruited on the basis of their education (not more than 8th standard) and the age of their child (below 18 months). This paper reports findings on various factors such as social-cultural barriers, family power hierarchy, language barriers, power distance issues which affect and limit an attempt to facilitate Participatory Design in a developmental context.