How Do You Do Participatory Design? Toward Better Support for Learning and Practicing Participatory Design

In this paper, we reflect on learning how to do Participatory Design (PD) from a beginner’s perspective. Based on our own experiences, we discuss common challenges in PD, such as scaling up participation in larger projects, communicating outcomes clearly, and dealing with power imbalances. To open up a conversation within the PD community, we propose three themes that we see as important for supporting reflective and accessible PD: lowering entry barriers, creating shared spaces for reflection, and building supportive learning environments. These themes are not yet fully established in current PD practice - but we believe they offer valuable starting points for further discussion, especially around how to support newcomers better and foster collective learning in PD.