Ethical Participatory Design: collaborative app development as indigenization of software engineering

Participatory Design in software engineering often leads to end-users participating in projects centred around the software team, with the end-users being treated as ‘others’. This exploratory paper describes a software project in Aotearoa New Zealand that uses the tools and methods of the indigenous end-user community to collaborate successfully with the software designers. The project is centred around, and led by, the indigenous community. We argue that the project, with its focus on place, tikanga, and belonging embodies the values of an ethics of restoration, and show-cases an example of ethical participatory design.