Domain Experts, Design Novices: How Community Practitioners Enact Participatory Design Values

Research Background and Issues

• What problems or challenges did the authors identify?
  In current Participatory Design (PD) research, design experts often dominate PD processes, with limited understanding of the role and value of "novice" facilitators—those with deep community backgrounds but limited design experience. Researchers point out that traditional PD methods may replicate existing power structures and biases, thereby restricting the participation of marginalized groups. This issue becomes particularly significant when PD expands to larger socio-technical projects, where fairness in practice is a critical concern.

• Why is this issue important?
  Novice facilitators may possess unique community cultural and domain knowledge, bridging the gap between professional design and community needs, and making PD outcomes more community-centered and equitable. This shift can broaden the applicability of PD across diverse communities and projects while promoting the democratization and sustainability of technology through localized design.

• Research Motivation and Related Work
  The authors highlight Community-Based Participatory Design (CBPD) as an equity-oriented approach that embeds design deeply within community culture and value systems. Literature shows that many core PD values, such as trust-building, co-production of knowledge, and non-hierarchical collaboration, are critical to design outcomes. However, there is limited research on how novice facilitators embody these values. This study aims to address this gap.

Solutions

• What methods or solutions did the authors propose?
  The authors conducted interviews and observations with 15 facilitators who had community knowledge but limited design experience. These facilitators carried out PD activities in various communities (e.g., rural educators, urban community colleges, Black community groups, rural librarians). Researchers analyzed the key values exhibited by facilitators during the PD process and the strategies they employed to implement these values.

• What is innovative about this solution?
  The study takes the perspective of "novice facilitators," revealing an alternative to traditional PD approaches centered on design experts. The authors summarize five core values embodied by these facilitators and propose two strategies to support equitable participatory design: "leveraging imposter syndrome to build trust" and "creating differentiated spaces for the PD process."

• What are the implementation steps and key techniques used?

  1. Research Design and Data Collection: Data was collected through online interviews and partial observations, capturing facilitators' experiences across multiple stages (planning, implementation, reflection).
  2. Data Analysis: Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Brown & Clarke) was employed to extract themes and core values from the data.
  3. Results Summarization: Affinity Diagramming was used to further explore the manifestation of values, implementation strategies, and challenges faced.

Research Findings

• What specific findings were obtained?
  The authors identified five core values exhibited by novice facilitators in the PD process:

  1. Community and Shared Culture: Explaining how community identity and culture foster effective collaboration.
  2. Co-production of Knowledge: Emphasizing collaborative design through participant contributions and feedback.
  3. Respect and Non-Hierarchy: Creating an egalitarian environment to avoid power structures.
  4. Trust-Building: Establishing trust through transparency and active listening to participants.
  5. Creating Practical and Sustainable Solutions: Ensuring design outcomes serve the community long-term while remaining adaptable.

• What advantages does it have compared to existing solutions?

  • Integrating community culture and domain-specific expertise into the design process makes PD outcomes more aligned with real community needs and goals.
  • Novice facilitators, through social-cultural immersion and contextual intimacy, can better shape design activities based on community realities, complementing traditional methods that emphasize design experts.
  • Provides actionable strategies—such as turning imposter syndrome into an advantage—to extend equity in design practices.

• What were the experimental or evaluation results?
  The authors showcased specific outcomes from PD activities, such as:

  • Community organizations designing events focused on health misinformation (e.g., Disinformation Day).
  • Librarians developing educational materials and digital tools for teenagers, such as online misinformation detection tests.
  • Educators creating modular curriculum content adaptable to diverse educational environments.

• Limitations and Future Directions

  • Limitations: Limited incorporation of direct feedback from community participants (e.g., librarians or educators), and minimal direct observation may restrict triangulation of data.
  • Future Directions: Expanding in-depth research on community participants to more comprehensively link facilitators, participants, and PD outcomes; exploring the implementation of similar strategies in PD practices centered on other socio-technical themes.

By synthesizing these findings, this study lays both theoretical and practical foundations for promoting equitable design practices in the field of human-computer interaction, particularly supporting diverse facilitator roles in community-embedded design.