Communication Styles as Challenges for Participatory Design Process Facilitators Working with Young People with Additional Needs in a Residential Care Setting: A Conversation Analysis

Abstract

Communication styles may play an important part in promoting or discouraging genuine engagement in participatory design, all the more so where design projects involve young people with additional needs receiving social work support. While technology designers may seek to set up a participatory process, the – possibly unconscious – communicative acts and language employed by a facilitator may play a crucial role in supporting or undermining participatory strategies, even where the participatory methods employed are appropriate to the planned process. This study presents findings of a conversation analysis undertaken on the opening minutes of a virtual participatory design workshop, showing how the sequence analyzed sets up a basis for participation that appears contradictory within itself.