Oscillations, Timescales and Trajectories: How Forms of Stakeholder Engagement Shape Design Outcomes

Scholars have found that participatory design generally leads to improved outcomes compared to approaches that do not involve stakeholders as participant designers. However, recent studies have called for an examination of tensions in stakeholder engagement and how these shape design outcomes in practice. To better understand these tensions, we conducted interviews, collected archival data, and used triangulation and an inductive theory building approach to analyze the efforts of two early-stage design teams in a professional aeronautics organization working with rural U.S. communities. We introduce “engagement threads” as an approach to visualizing the interplay between stakeholder engagement and design outcomes over the course of design efforts. Looking across fourteen engagement threads, we observed that particular patterns of stakeholder engagement—exhibited through the characteristics of oscillations, timescales, and trajectories—suggest different types of design outcomes. We close by discussing implications and recommendations for design practitioners, providing insights into how forms of stakeholder engagement shape design outcomes.