“
e tools for participatory design exercises resemble items in an elementary school classroom and can be purchased at office, craft, or teacher supply stores. Scissors, glue sticks, poster boards, scrap book pages, stickers or printouts with words or pictures, cameras, playful shapes, and markers are typical items. Stickers or printouts with words or images are especially useful because they can used to express items, feelings, actions, features, etc. For three-dimensional or interactive products, Legos or building blocks may be used.
Exercises can be developed to express cognitive, emotional, aspirational, and procedural issues. They can also be developed to enable the embodiment of ideas. In creating the exercise, both the choice of words and images and instructions for the exercise must be considered. Emotional exercises tend to ask people to describe an experience and use words that describe feelings: careful, alert, relaxed, etc. The images are tend to show people expressing emotion or elements which tend to drive elicit these emotions. Procedural exercises usually involve asking a person to describe a current or aspired process. They use action or activity words, such as: think, create, shop, buy, etc. The images are typically cartoon-type drawings that express actions or items associated with these actions. The act of laying out the words and images and the choice of placement on the paper or poster board enable participants to map out much more than could be kept in their conscious memory during a conversation. They also give the participants a chance to notice and articulate their latent feelings. Participants often mention that the act is fun and therapeutic.
Exercises can be developed to express cognitive, emotional, aspirational, and procedural issues. They can also be developed to enable the embodiment of ideas. In creating the exercise, both the choice of words and images and instructions for the exercise must be considered. Emotional exercises tend to ask people to describe an experience and use words that describe feelings: careful, alert, relaxed, etc. The images are tend to show people expressing emotion or elements which tend to drive elicit these emotions. Procedural exercises usually involve asking a person to describe a current or aspired process. They use action or activity words, such as: think, create, shop, buy, etc. The images are typically cartoon-type drawings that express actions or items associated with these actions. The act of laying out the words and images and the choice of placement on the paper or poster board enable participants to map out much more than could be kept in their conscious memory during a conversation. They also give the participants a chance to notice and articulate their latent feelings. Participants often mention that the act is fun and therapeutic.
