Beyond Participation: A Review of Co-Creation in Computing

TL;DR

This paper reviews how co-creation is conceptualized and applied across various domains in computing, introducing a framework to analyze different notions and highlighting future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive literature review and a novel framework to analyze co-creation approaches in computing across multiple domains.

Findings

Diverse conceptualizations of co-creation across domains

A framework distinguishing target audiences, roles, technology, and results

Identification of research gaps and future directions

Abstract

New methods and technologies for engaging future users and other stakeholders in participatory (design) processes are being developed and proposed. Increasingly, researchers refer to co-creation in order to capture such approaches. However, how co-creation is being framed and understood across domains differs substantially. To better understand co-creation in computing, we conducted a literature review of all papers in the ACM Digital Library with co-creation or co-create in their abstracts. After an initial screening, we retained 62 for further analysis. We introduce a framework to analyze different notions of co-creation, distinguishing between co-creation target audiences, the roles of co-creators, the role of technology (as means or objective) and its results. We discuss the adoption of co-creation in domains such as learning, business, arts & culture, health, and the public sector. This paper contributes to the understanding of different approaches and conceptualizations of co-creation in computing and puts forward an agenda for future research.