This is a CTP of initiative: DESIS - DESIS Lab Florianópolis (Brazil)
The laboratory had a methodological improvement that began in 2014 when they got involved in the co-design approach.
Before 2014, the participatory approach used in the projects was intuitive, not a methodological procedure. The researchers did not have the technical abilities and design tools to help the group develop a more participatory approach.
In 2014 there was a researcher who returned to the lab to develop his doctorate research considering participatory design methodology and tools. He influenced the lab by changing its approach and developing a new set of tools to be used by the researchers of the group.
Among the lab's researchers there were several different research approaches they pursued and there were several areas of interest. When they acknowledged the relevance of participatory design, all other researchers (who were not necessarily developing participatory approach methodologies) sought to see how participatory design could impact their research. Not that the searches were properly linked to participatory design itself, but they started to think how they could apply this kind of thinking and practice within their projects.
This methodological change, then, was not limited to the group working specifically with participatory design approaches and tools, but all researchers began to acknowledge this kind of tool and performed more collaborative and participatory research.
In 2009 there was a project in an environmental park, within an environmental education program involving various actors of one community. In this example, this researcher was a collaborator while completing his master’s studies. He realized that there was a shortage of instruments available in order to develop solutions in a participatory manner. His research was conducted with the notion of participation, but was much more consultative. People did not participate properly in formulating design solutions; they were consulted as part of the data collection. And he felt the lack of instruments that would enable the real participation of the community. That's when he perceived this need.
In his master's research in 2011, he was developing a methodology for a project of solid waste management and he realized that the strategic aspect was a systemic approach and a more tactical aspect was the issue of participatory design, because they had an inter-sectoral range of actors and many participation mechanisms were needed to house these groups in decision-making, but once again they faced a lack of instruments and tools to facilitate this process.
When he returned to the lab in 2014, in an attempt to apply research-action methodology, the researcher helped a colleague who was collecting data in a nearby community. This opened the opportunity to create a collaborative workshop. In the end the researcher realized that his study on participatory design methods and tools could benefit others in the laboratory and began to participate in data collection and creativity workshops with others researchers at the Lab:
“I became a collaborator with other researchers. And it ended up giving me tools for my own research”.
The implementation of the participatory design process in the laboratory was due to a specific piece of research conducted by one student who was a member of the laboratory during his graduation and master’s and developed this methodology when completing his doctorate. It was the perception of a researcher that became a larger project.
2009 – Shortage of instruments perceived - While in a community project, the researcher realized the shortage of instruments to develop solutions in a participatory manner.
2011 – Shortage of instruments perceived again - While developing another project once again he faced a lack of instruments and tools to facilitate this process.
2014 - PhD admission with participatory design project - Entry into the doctorate with a participatory design project and proposal of changes to the laboratory’s methodology.
2015 - The design of the laboratory’s space was reconfigured - Before 2015 the lab had a very organized space with tables and computers for each member, displayed in a very traditional way. The participatory methodology made them feel the need to change the configuration in order to promote an exchange between the team and facilitate collaborative processes within their own laboratory.
2015 – Definition of profiles for each project phase - They acknowledged specific competencies for each part of the project: the designer does not need to be all in one.
In 2011 the researcher tried to develop a participatory design method as a master’s thesis and it was refused in the research qualification stage.
The main reasons were that some designers and professors thought that only designers could create solutions to design projects. In participatory process, the community is active as a creator as well. The interviewee thinks that this contestation is related to the market reserve and the status of the design profession, because in participatory methods, all participants become designers.
After 2014, there were a high number of international publications that recognized this approach, so his research was accepted and he began the doctorate. The theme was consolidated in large research centers. It was easier to have internal and external support because the institution recognized the importance of developing such research:
"To deny this is to not want to relate participation and participatory processes with design. People are connected, it is a reality, it is now important to theorize and conceptualize all this for the management of design to make the participatory process a fact "
He had hoped that the approach and research would change the practice of design, first internally, then externally. He also believes it is a paradigm of real change; the interviwee seems that design education needs to be modified so that it has a global vision of design as a broad and collective process, not an individual one.
He expected that the laboratory would be a group of people who would engage in this idea because they shared these values, but the transformation happened very fast. Since 2014 all researches have been working with this approach in one way or another and the engagement was fast and very effective:
“I did not have the notion that it would be so fast or that we would have such good results in such little time. This participatory approach in bringing many positive research results, it is a great joy and a victory for the whole laboratory”.
Another thing that he did not anticipate was the unity that it promoted in the group: “We began not only to apply participatory processes in our research, but also in our own laboratory, which has become a more collaborative and more united place in interpersonal relations”.
For the researcher, the learning process is deeper than for others, because he is immersed in the proposal. For him, there was tacit learning and explicit learning.
The tacit learning is recognized in the different mood that the lab has now. The interviewee said that the feeling of unity and comradeship incresead after participatory approach became used in the lab´s projects. He thinks that the listening skills as well as the facilitator role that the designers needed to develop helped the laboratory´s team to get along in a better way.
The explicit knowledge is seem in the researches conducted by the laboratory and the methodological frame they developed regarding their work. The interviewee believes the laboratory is very important in fostering the participatory design approach nationally and this approach chage is closely related to this ongoing practice of knowledge creation.
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