Weaving Lighthouses and Stitching Stories: Blind and Visually Impaired People Designing E-textiles

We describe our experience of working with blind and visually impaired people to create interactive art objects that are personal to them, through a participatory making process using electronic textiles (e-textiles) and hands-on crafting techniques. The research addresses both the practical considerations about how to structure hands-on making workshops in a way which is accessible to participants of varying experience and abilities, and how effective the approach was in enabling participants to tell their own stories and feel in control of the design and making process. The results of our analysis is the offering of insights in how to run e-textile making sessions in such a way for them to be more accessible and inclusive to a wider community of participants

Participatory Scenario Generation: Communicating Usability Issues in Product Design through User Involvement in Scenario Generation\ud

Scenarios have proven to be a valuable tool in evaluating and communicating usability issues in consumer product design. Scenarios are explicit descriptions of hypothetical use situations. Realistic scenarios can serve as a valuable frame of reference to evaluate design solutions with regard to usability. To be able to achieve this required level of realism, involving users in scenario generation is essential. In this presentation we discuss how and where users can be involved in a scenario based product design process by means of examples of design projects that were executed by master students Industrial Design Engineering of the University of Twente. \ud \ud We distinguish direct and indirect scenario generation. In direct scenario generation the user is actively involved in a participatory scenario generation session: the scenarios are created together with users. Indirect scenario generation is an approach in which scenarios are created by designers based on common analysis techniques like observations and interviews. These scenarios are then offered to users for confirmation. Both types of user involvement in scenario generation can be aimed at either current use scenarios which describe the current situation or future use scenarios which include a new product design. \ud \ud The examples show that all strategies can be applied successfully to create realistic scenarios. Which strategy to choose depends among others upon risks and privacy issues, occurrence of infrequent events and availability of users. Furthermore, the variety of approaches shows that there is still a lot to explore with regard to benefits and limitations of the many techniques that can be applied in generating scenarios for consumer product design. We hope to contribute to this field by means of the research in our group and the work of students in the SBPD course\u

Maker Movements, Do-It-Yourself Cultures and Participatory Design: Implications for HCI Research

Falling costs and the wider availability of computational components, platforms and ecosystems have enabled the expansion of maker movements and DIY cultures. This can be considered as a form of democratization of technology systems design, in alignment with the aims of Participatory Design approaches. However, this landscape is constantly evolving, and long-term implications for the HCI community are far from clear. The organizers of this one-day workshop invite participants to present their case studies, experiences and perspectives on the topic with the goal of increasing understanding within this area of research. The outcomes of the workshop will include the articulation of future research directions with the purpose of informing a research agenda, as well as the establishment of new collaborations and networks

Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

New forms of social affective applications are emerging, bringing with them challenges in design and evaluation. We report on one such application, conveying well-being for both personal and group benefit, and consider why existing methodologies may not be suitable, before explaining and analyzing our proposed approach. We discuss our experience of using and writing about the methodology, in order to invite discussion about its suitability in particular, as well as the more general need for methodologies to examine experience and affect in social, connected situations. As these fields continue to interact, we hope that these discussions serve to aid in studying and learning from these types of application

Picturing impact of the PEDIGREA program: a case study from Indramayu, Indonesia

Over the last twelve years, FIELD Indonesia staff has been using various participatory approaches towards measuring impact of its interventions, mainly in the framework of its involvement under FAO Community Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Asia program. Since 2002, FIELD is one of the partners in the PEDIGREA program, focusing on participatory crop and farm animal improvement. PEDIGREA is a regional program on farmer’s management of genetic resources, i.e. rice, local vegetables and poultry, which is implemented by three NGOs in Philippines, Cambodia and Indonesia, and supported by Wageningen UR, FAO, and IPGRI APO. The first attempt in 1991 (the development of three IPM Village Profiles) involved having farmers draw and discuss the benefits of participation in a Farmer Field School (FFS). Other approaches are relying on aerial planning and interactive participation techniques, iterative appraisal approaches, and socio-economic impacts. Comparing these approaches reveals that a wide scope of options for monitoring impact is available. Here we report on the results of an impact assessment method that appeared highly practical as a participatory tool: a participatory and interactive perception measuring technique for which farmers were asked to analyze the impact of the PEDIGREA program activities in their villages by making a photograph series of the project results and discussing the photographs in the community. The process distinguishes three steps: a) a three days workshop with farmer representatives from each group/village to discuss the concept of project results and impacts, to learn how to take useful photographs, and to make a work plan of objects and situations for each village to be photographed; b) a two week period of activities in each village to take photos, to select the interesting pictures, and to write the explanatory notes for each of the photos; c) a three days workshop to finalize the notes for each picture, to reflect on the program impacts and farmer’s benefits, to evaluate the impact study process, and to develop follow-up plan for each group/village. Some of the major results as visualized in the impact monitoring approach include: other farmers in the villages started to learn the breeding process from the farmer participants in the FFS; other farmers started to ask for and plant the local vegetable seeds, e.g. luffa and bitter gourd, which resulted from breeding activities in the village; better prices in local market for luffa produce by the farmer participants were realized; and some village authorities provided resources to the groups to conduct local field studies

Technology networks for socially useful production

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Collective awareness platforms and digital social innovation mediating consensus seeking in problem situations

In this paper we show the results of our studies carried out in the framework of the European Project SciCafe2.0 in the area of Participatory Engagement models. We present a methodological approach built on participative engagements models and holistic framework for problem situation clarification and solution impacts assessment. Several online platforms for social engagement have been analysed to extract the main patterns of participative engagement. We present our own experiments through the SciCafe2.0 Platform and our insights from requirements elicitation

Making sense of assets: Community asset mapping and related approaches for cultivating capacities

This working paper critically reviews some main aspects from asset based approaches highlights key strengths and weaknesses for future research/development. Drawing on a large body of reports and relevant literature we draw on different theoretical traditions and critiques, as well as practices and processes embedded within a broad range of approaches including, widely acknowledged frameworks such Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Sustainable Livelihood Approaches (SLA) and Community Capitals Framework (CCF). Although these are presented as distinct approaches, there is a sense of evolution through them and many of them overlap (in terms of both theories and methodologies). We also include emerging frameworks, including geographical, socio-spatial, visual and creative approaches, stemming from a number of projects within AHRC’s Connected Communities programme and additional collaborations