Domain Experts, Design Novices: How Community Practitioners Enact Participatory Design Values

There is a growing interest among researchers to define and promote equitable practices in participatory design (PD). Our work contributes to this research by exploring the values of facilitators with varying professional backgrounds. We conducted interviews with 15 facilitators who are novice in their design background but who possess a range of domain expertise and community memberships. The interviews focused on their experiences leading a series of PD sessions with rural educators, community college instructors, community organization members, and rural librarians. We identified five key values that facilitators saw as fundamental to their PD practice: community and shared culture, co-production of knowledge, respect and non-hierarchy, trust building, and creating practical and sustainable solutions. This study demonstrates how values that are core to PD are refracted through novice facilitators’ professional expertise and community membership. We offer two strategies for novice facilitators as they strive to practice more equitable PD.