Programme

This full-day workshop has a creative, generative character. It refrains from using a standard workshop setup of presentations and discussions. Instead, sharing best practices, brainstorms and adjusting participatory design techniques are at the core of all activities.

The workshop will consist of four parts:

1. Introduction

Participants introduce themselves based on the workshop cards they prepared, and talk about their role in the projects, making use of the ‘workshop cards’ (see participate for more information on the cards). The goal of this part is mainly to get to know each other and to create an informal atmosphere to share best practices and common problems.

2. Technique mapping

In small groups, participants discuss their experiences. Each person in the group discusses one of their workshop cards in detail, after which the group thinks about how the technique on the card could be adapted and applied to another target group (preferably a target group one of the other participants in the group has worked with). More specifically, they discuss which elements of the technique they would keep, change, add or delete for the other target group. When all group members have discussed one of their workshop cards, the group formulates six ‘take home messages’ based on their discussion.

3. Clustering

The organizers present the take home messages that resulted from the two previous workshops, which they have clustered into themes beforehand. The participants present the take home messages resulting from their group’s mappings and discuss if and how these fit into the predetermined themes, and if more themes need to be added

4. Guidelines

In a final session, the participants work in small groups again. Each group chooses one (or, if time allows, more) theme(s). Based on the metaphor of a handbook (“Imagine that we would write a handbook on participatory design for people living with cognitive or sensory impairments, what topics should that book cover?”), each group discusses the theme into more detail and, based on the related take home messages, tries to formulate general guidelines for other researchers and designers.

Post-workshop follow-up

The organizers wish to share the results of the three workshops to the community of researchers and designers working with people living with cognitive or sensory impairments. This may be achieved via collaborative publications with all participants, a lively community of researchers and designers (e.g. via LinkedIn), conference tutorials, etc.