Applying participatory design principles to collaborative art-creating sessions
Darja Tokranova, Merja Bauters · 2022
Participatory design (PD) is an established design practice that is particularly widely used in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and is based on involving all stakeholders in design process. Considering the popularity of this approach, one might wonder if the same design principles can be applied in other domains, for instance, visual and fine arts. For this study, a small sample of people, who usually would be just passive spectators of art, was invited to participate in a creative workshop organized by PD principles and to create a fine art themselves. This way, people with only past or little artistic ambitions became “users, taking control” rather than passive consumers of an end-product. The participants reflected and documented their feelings before and after the event. Preliminary results suggest that this hybrid approach positively contributes to the relationship dynamics within a formed team and evokes an interest in individual creative activities.