Scaling Participation -- What Does the Concept of Managed Communities Offer for Participatory Design?

TL;DR

This paper explores how managed communities can facilitate scaling participation in participatory design, highlighting benefits and challenges through a healthcare case study and emphasizing the importance of core PD values.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of managed communities as a strategy for scaling PD and discusses practical solutions and critical reflections based on a healthcare sector case study.

Findings

Managed communities can effectively scale participation in PD.

Challenges include maintaining core PD values during scaling.

Proposed solutions address observed issues in managed communities.

Abstract

This paper investigates mechanisms for scaling participation in participatory design (PD). Specifically, the paper focuses on managed communities, one strategy of generification work. We first give a brief introduction on the issue of scaling in PD, followed by exploring the strategy of managed communities in PD. This exploration is underlined by an ongoing case study in the healthcare sector, and we propose solutions to observed challenges. The paper ends with a critical reflection on the possibilities managed communities offer for PD. Managed communities have much to offer beyond mere generification work for large-scale information systems, but we need to pay attention to core PD values that are in danger of being sidelined in the process.