-
in Participatory Design (PD) [
13
]. Our reasoning is based on some difficulties we
have experienced in research projects aimed at engaging large and heterogeneous
actor groups (i.e. citizens in public museums, older people in technology assisted
homes and outdoors, students in a University campus). From our viewpoint,
scalability, rather than being merely a problem of “quantity” or “size”, also involves the issue
of social/human and material/technical heterogeneity. Thus, scaling up is referred to
both the number of participants and the space of participation for a vast array of
people and things [
11
].
multidisciplinary approach, by intertwining concepts such as scaffolding [
14
],
infrastructuring [
2
] and engagement [
19
] which refer to OS, STS and PD respectively.
2
Related Work
Looking back at the PD projects conducted since the 1970s, Clement and van den
Besselaar [
4
] found that, with a few exceptions, early PD projects “were generally
small-scale and isolated from other levels of the host and sponsoring organization”
[p.32]. Similarly, Shapiro [
17
] and Balka [
1
] advocated a reformist participatory
agenda based on engaging with large-scale public sector organizations. Recently, Le
Dantec and DiSalvo [
10
] argued that infrastructuring should be regarded as a
sociotechnical process for constituting and supporting a public, while Simonsen and
Hertzum [
18
] claimed that “a review of PD experiments has been restricted to
smallscale (often driven researchers) or to the initial parts of larger scale information
systems development followed by a conventional contractual bid (…) Active
engagement in – and documentation of results with – large-scale information systems
represent a major goal for PD” [p.11]. Even though participatory methods and techniques
are currently applied to a range of projects, spanning from software development to
urban planning, their scalability cannot be taken for granted and heterogeneity of
stakeholders poses several challenges. While describing a large-scale public project,
Dalsgaard [
6
] stressed that “even though identifying different types of users and
involving them is possible (…) [the] users’ needs are heterogeneous and may change
over time” [p.42-43] resulting in specific demands that must be addressed through
techniques and technologies to scaffold participation [
14
]. Thus, acknowledging the
urgency of scaling up engagement, we discuss how to support participation in
largescale projects.
3
Epistemological Tools
In the following subsections, the main features of scaffolding and infrastructuring
are discussed. These concepts can be used as epistemological tools for the
development of design methods, devices or techniques for the engagement in PD. Their
connection could lead to a solution to the issue of scalability.
3.1
Scaffolding
The word scaffold(ing) is commonly used in the construction industry to refer to
the temporary structures that support building or renovation works. This term has
been used to convey the organizational elements of what we may identify as the
support and co-piloting work that enables transmission of the knowledge and culture of a
practice [
9
]. Orlikowski [
14
] argues that “scaffolds include physical objects, linguistic
systems, technological artifacts, spatial contexts, and institutional rules” [p.462] and
describes their properties as follows [pp.461-462]:
─ A scaffold is temporary: it typically exists for the duration of a project and is
dismantled once the elements are completed or self-supporting.
─ A scaffold is flexible: it is adapted to fit the particular local conditions.
─ A scaffold is portable: it is easily moved, assembled, modified, and disassembled.
─ A scaffold exists in numerous forms: there are many different kinds according to
the goal.
─ A scaffold is heterogeneous: it consists of different components according to what
must be supported and the materials at hand.
─ A scaffold is emergent: it is erected over time, changing in form and function, as
needed to continue supporting the changing scale and scope of the element(s) being
built over time.
─ A scaffold is generative: it serves as the basis for other (creative) work, facilitating
the performance of activities that would been impractical without material support
(augmentation).
─ A scaffold is dangerous: it is vulnerable to breakdown and failure because it is a
temporary, emergent, and rapidly constructed assemblage.
─ A scaffold is constitutive: it is constituted both of human activity and outcomes.
Bearing these properties in mind, how can we scaffold participation at design time
and at a larger scale? The answer cannot overlook the concept of infrastructuring.
3.2
Infrastructuring
The term “infrastructure” evokes vast sets of collective equipment necessary to
human activities so that people envision infrastructure as a system of railroad lines,
pipes and plumbing, electrical power plants, and wires. Drawing on STS, the term
could be defined and conceptualized as a multifaceted notion referring to interrelated
technical, social and organizational arrangements involving hardware and software
technologies, standards, procedures, practices and policies, along with digital
configurations in support of human communication and capabilities [
5
]. Starting from [
21
],
Bowker and Star [
2
] described the salient characteristics of infrastructure [p.35]:
─ An infrastructure is embedded: it is sunk into, inside of, other structures, social
arrangements, and technologies.
─ An infrastructure is transparent: it does not have to be reinvented each time or
assembled for each task, but invisibly supports those tasks.
─ An infrastructure is aimed at: it may be either spatially or temporally oriented.
Infrastructure has reach beyond a single event or one-site practice.
─ An infrastructure is taken-for-granted: it is made up of artifacts and organizational
arrangements which are learned as part of membership in a community of practice.
─ An infrastructure is linked with conventions of practice: it both shapes and is
shaped by conventions of a community of practice.
─ An infrastructure is standardized: it embodies standards.
─ An infrastructure is built on an installed base: it does not grow de novo, but
wrestles with the inertia of the installed base and inherits strengths and limitations from
the base.
─ An infrastructure is visible upon breakdown: it is normally invisible but becomes
visible when it breaks.
─ An infrastructure is incremental: it is big, layered, complex, and it means different
things locally, so that it is never changed above. Changes take time and
negotiation, and adjustments with other aspects of the systems involved.
Later, with their book titled “How to Infrastructure?”, Star and Bowker [
20
]
stressed a focus on doing and fostered an exploration of infrastructuring as a more
comprehensive term for the creative design activities of professional designers and
users [
15
]. Recently, Le Dantec and DiSalvo [
10
] defined infrastructuring as the work
of creating socio-technical resources for the attachment of people who may become a
motivated public over time. In this view, technologies act as drivers for
sociotechnical relationships, not as their end. This perspective implies a shift from a
technocratic view of innovation to a view puts the emphasis on the entanglement of social
and material aspects [
13
]. The concept of attachment introduces the idea of PD as a
process to create fertile ground to sustain, over time and space, a community of
participants. Brandt, Binder and Sanders [
3
] claim that “in a particular design project,
participatory tools and techniques can be seen as the scaffolding for the temporary
community of practice in the making” [p.148]. So, how could the connection between
our epistemological tools generate a large-scale engagement? We will address this
point in the final section.
4
Discussion
The challenge of any participatory approach applied to a large-scale project lies in
devoting attention to human and material agency. For the researchers who are used to
apply a participatory approach at a small-scale, this could sound as an obvious
statement, as design methods are usually concerned with preparing settings and tools for
the involvement of people [
8
]. However, underestimating the different challenges of
engagement at a larger scale, with heterogeneous groups of participants to involve
actively as co-designers, can result in several problems [
12
] [
16
]. A large scale has a
different impact on the research activity than a small scale, calling for scaffolds that
adapt to the features listed by Orlikowski [
14
]. Whereas a list of the properties
characterizing the concepts of scaffolding and infrastructuring has been produced, to the best
of our knowledge there is no such list for the concept of engagement. Thus, by
reviewing the PD literature [e.g. 19] and starting from our research experience [
7
] [
22
],
we identified the main properties of engagement. Engagement is polyphonic (its
success is strongly linked to the different voices who are able to contribute to design),
embedded (related to people, technologies and practices at stake), embodied
(influenced by the knowledge and competences of the people involved), encultured
(entrenched in values, rituals and culture shared by the people to engage), cooperative
(based on a mutual learning process between users and designers), pragmatic
(benefiting from the insiders’ specific knowledge of the environment targeted by the
design), iterative (based on design-test-measure-redesign cycles repeated as often as
necessary), ambiguous (it stimulates the participants’ creativity, giving them the
possibility to influence actively the design process).
In order to generate such engagement at a large-scale, we suggest considering
scaffolding and infrastructuring as two interrelated and consecutive steps of a process.
The design of a scaffold (e.g. participatory tools and techniques, web platforms, social
networks) is the starting point: it should stick as much as possible to the features listed
in Table 1. In particular, scalability of engagement in a PD project is fostered by an
emergent scaffold, as defined in section 3.1, because this characteristic refers to its
adaptability to participants, theirs needs and features. At the same time, we highlight
that a scaffold should be flexible and portable enough to be used in different projects,
as well as meeting the budget requirements, which usually represent one of the main
constraints to scaling up.
Scaffolding
Temporary
Flexible
Portable
Numerous forms
Heterogeneous
Emergent
Generative
Dangerous
Constitutive
Infrastructuring
Embedded
Transparent
Reach or scope
Taken-for-granted
Linked with
con
ventions of practice
Standardized
Built on an
in
stalled base
Visible upon
breakdown
Incremental
Engaging
Polyphonic
Embedded
Embodied
Encultured
Cooperative
Pragmatic
Iterative
Ambiguous
Scaffolding enables the socio-technical infrastructuring. However, the occurrence
of this turning point cannot be planned or predicted, due to the situated nature of each
design process: some processes need to be supported by a scaffold for a longer time,
due to the specific socio-technical complexity, while others require less time for
scaffold to turn into infrastructure. The double dimension – social and technical - of
infrastructuring needs to be properly stressed [
7
]. We refer to social infrastructuring as the
set of engaged people, and to the technical infrastructuring as the ensemble of
technologies which are at their disposal to actively participate. Therefore, the passage
from scaffolding to infrastructuring is marked by the engagement of participants who
develop attachment towards the design process. Such a process, based on the
connection of scaffolding and infrastructuring, is suitable for both small- and large-scale
design projects, even though it becomes all the more advisable to engage a larger and
heterogeneous public.
5