The Design of Pseudo-Participation
Name
PDC_2020__Pseudo_Participation_and_Design_overleaf_final.pdf
Description
PDC 2020 Exploratory Paper preprint
Size
496.6 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d4eb9c5865f2449e48a213d49dd06979
Author(s)
Palacin, Victoria
Nelimarkka, Matti
Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro
Becker, Christoph
Date Issued
April 16, 2020
June 2020
Journal
Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2020
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Citation
Palacin, Victoria, et al. "The Design of Pseudo-Participation." Participatory Design Conference, June 2020. Association for Computing Machinery, June 2020.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Participation is key to building an equitable, realistic and democratic future. Yet a lack of agency in decision making and agenda-setting is a growing phenomenon in the design of digital public services. We call this pseudo-participation by and in design. The configuration of digital artifacts and/or processes can provide an illusion of participation but lack supportive processes and affordances to allow meaningful participation to happen. This exploratory paper examines the realm of pseudo-participation in the design of public digital services through two concepts: 1) pseudo-participation by design, digital interfaces, and tools that provide the illusion of participation to the people, 2) pseudo-participation in design, processes in which those affected by the design decisions are
marginalized and not given any agency. We contribute to the re-imagination of participatory design in modern societies where the role of politics has become ubiquitous and is yet to be critically scrutinized by designers.
Subjects
digital services
technocratic clientelism
pseudo-participation by design
pseudo-participation in design
user configuration
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Civic Media
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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