Editing Participatory design (section)

===In software development===
In the [[English language|English]]-speaking world, the term has a particular currency in the world of [[software development]], especially in circles connected to [[Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility]] (CPSR), who have put on a series of [[Participatory Design Conferences]]. It overlaps with the approach [[extreme programming]] takes to user involvement in design, but (possibly because of its European [[trade union]] origins) the Participatory Design tradition puts more emphasis on the involvement of a broad population of users rather than a small number of user representatives.

Participatory design can be seen as a move of end-users into the world of researchers and developers, whereas [[empathic design]] can be seen as a move of researchers and developers into the world of end-users. There is a very significant differentiation between user-design and [[user-centered design]] in that there is an emancipatory theoretical foundation, and a systems theory bedrock ([[Kristo Ivanov|Ivanov]], 1972, 1995), on which user-design is founded. Indeed, user-centered design is a useful and important construct, but one that suggests that users are taken as centers in the design process, consulting with users heavily, but not allowing users to make the decisions, nor empowering users with the tools that the experts use.  For example, [[Wikipedia]] content is user-designed. Users are given the necessary tools to make their own entries. Wikipedia's underlying [[wiki]] software is based on user-centered design: while users are allowed to propose changes or have input on the design, a smaller and more specialized group decide about features and system design.

Participatory work in software development has historically tended toward two distinct trajectories, one in Scandinavia and northern Europe, and the other in North America.  The Scandinavian and northern European tradition has remained closer to its roots in the labor movement (e.g., Beck, 2002; Bjerknes, Ehn, and Kyng, 1987).  The North American and [[Pacific rim]] tradition has tended to be both broader (e.g., including managers and executives as "stakeholders" in design) and more circumscribed (e.g., design of individual ''features'' as contrasted with the Scandinavian approach to the design of ''entire systems'' and design of the ''work that the system is supposed to support'') (e.g., Beyer and Holtzblatt, 1998; Noro and Imada, 1991).  However, some more recent work has tended to combine the two approaches (Bødker et al., 2004; Muller, 2007).