Participatory design in interactive media design education for the solution of unfamiliar design problems: a case study on a disabling environment and an emerging technology

Abstract

This paper investigates the effectiveness of participatory design study in rendering the students' capability of producing innovative design solutions to problems with uncertainties with which the students have no prior experience. At the project, the students were given a case to work on augmented reality technology with which they had no previous experience and design a tactical interface for sailing boats, a field they had no competence in. While the students were asked to develop proposals for this design problem with which they were inexperienced, a two-stage study was conducted to enable them to produce ideas on the topic. This paper discusses the impacts of such a participatory method in terms of design education. At the end of our study, it was observed that the students were positively influenced by the process in which they worked collaboratively with an expert user group.