Workshop: “And this is where we fu***d up!” Lessons learned from Participatory Design in Digital Civic Initiatives

NordiCHI 2024

We are delighted to be hosting a workshop at NordiCHI – Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Uppsala, Sweden, on October 13, 2024.

Participatory design initiatives, especially within the realm of digital civics, are often integrated and codeveloped with the very citizens and communities they intend to assist. Digital civics research aims to create positive social change using a variety of digital technologies. These research projects commonly adopt various embedded processes, such as commissioning models. Despite the adoption of this process within a range of domains, there isn’t currently a framework for best practices and accountability procedures to ensure we engage with citizens ethically and ensure the sustainability of our projects. This workshop aims to provide a space to start collaboratively constructing a dynamic framework of best practices, laying the groundwork for the future of sustainable embedded research processes. The overarching goal is to foster discussions and share insights that contribute to developing effective practices, ensuring the longevity and impact of participatory digital civics projects.

Can failure in participatory design be a catalyst for positive change in digital civics? If so, how can we best leverage it? This workshop will explore this and other key questions, including how failure is defined and for whom, what lessons it can teach us, and the kinds of knowledge these experiences yield.

Participants will be asked to send one to two-page submissions, stating their contribution and motivation related to the workshop. Submissions that include anecdotes about setbacks or failures in PD efforts are encouraged, as these may serve as case studies during the workshop and in the subsequent article. Unorthodox formats are welcome, such as (but not limited to) video pitch, pictorial or storyboard presentation. Submissions must adhere to the accessibility guidelines of NordiCHI 2024. Participants are selected based on their experience relevance and/or interest for the workshop.

Please email your submission to Clara Rosa Cardoso at: Clara.RosaCardoso@uni-siegen.de prior to the 27th September 2024 with the following subject line:

‘Learning from failure: NordiCHI 2024’

Organisers

Clara Rosa Cardoso is a PhD student and research assistant at the Institute for Information Systems and New Media at the University of Siegen. She currently contributes to research projects involving PD initiatives for digital civics with underserved communities in Portugal and computer clubs for children in refugee camps in Palestine.

Dr. Sarah Rüller is a PostDoc researcher at the Institute for Information Systems and New Media at the University of Siegen. Her doctoral research focuses on computer clubs and computer-supported project-based learning with Imazighen (indigenous inhabitants of Morocco) in the High Atlas. She is also focussing on censorship on social media platforms, particularly in the context Palestine/Israel.

Ana O. Henriques is currently a junior researcher at the Interactive Technologies Institute / LARSyS, at the University of Lisbon. Ana has focused their research at the intersections of ethics, feminist HCI and digital civics. They are developing the concept of community-led ethics as a process of feminist ethical frameworking for digital civics in the context of the DCitizens project.

Dr. Anna Carter is an Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University, she has extensive experience in designing technologies for local council regeneration programs, with a focus on creating accessible digital experiences using human-centred methods and participatory design. She currently contributes to the Digital Civics research capacities for early career researchers in the EU-funded DCitizens Programme and on digital civics, outdoor spaces and sense of place as part of the EPSRC funded Centre for Digital Citizens.

(apl.) Prof. Dr. Markus Rohde, is a founding member of the International Institute for Socio-Informatics and a co-editor of the International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI). As head of Community Informatics at the Institute for Information Systems and New Media at the University of Siegen, his work focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), organizational and collaborative learning, virtual teams, NGOs and (new) social movements.

Event Overview:

Building on the CHI SIG’s insights, we submitted a workshop proposal to NordiCHI 2024 focused on participatory design (PD) in Digital Civics. This workshop aimed to explore challenges and failures often overlooked in PD projects. Through case studies and group discussions, participants will reflect on how failure is defined and the obstacles encountered and collaborate on solutions. 

A particular focus of the workshop will be on the impact of these challenges on the well-being of researchers and communities, addressing a key need identified during the SIG. By sharing strategies and embracing different perspectives on failure, we aim to foster collective learning, helping to build more resilient, sustainable design practices in Digital Civics. 

This ongoing project is a collaborative effort involving Clara Rosa Cardoso, Markus Rohde and Sarah Ruller, and from the DCitizens project at the University of Siegen; Anna Carter from the DCitizens project and Centre for Digital Citizens, Northumbria University and Ana O. Henriques from the DCitizens Project at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa. 

What’s the impact?

This project resulted in an ACM workshop paper at NordiCHI 2024, the annual Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. We are currently working on follow-up publications focused on the content and methodologies emerging from these discussions and publications. 

  • Clara Rosa Cardoso, Sarah Rüller, Ana O Henriques, Anna R. L. Carter, and Markus Rohde. 2024. “And this is where we fu***d up!” Lessons learned from Participatory Design in Digital Civic Initiatives. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’24 Adjunct). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 35, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1145/3677045.3685450