Increasing Participatory Engagement through Technology and Design

This broad-ranging edited collection highlights the role that technology can play in increasing community engagement in participatory design, now and in the future.

Challenging conventional notions of participatory design, this volume provides innovative solutions in areas such as democracy, sustainable living, smart cities, energy, and transport. Design has the capacity to engage citizens and communities in new and different ways, and since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become increasingly important to rethink how services and engagement can be made digital. Each chapter demonstrates applied and potential uses of emerging technologies as a form of engagement with select case studies from South and North America, Europe, and Asia, all grounded in participatory theories, methods, and practices. Together, they explore how the green transition, the move to Industry 5.0, global-centric design, or systemic design approaches play a role in citizen engagement when current paradigms are being challenged. Leading practitioners and researchers cover topics such as crowd-sourcing information gathering, visual and systems thinking, creativity tools, participatory budgeting and governance, online participation, and citizen engagement to bridge communities and government.

This interdisciplinary book provides theoretical and practical knowledge for those who work with citizens, communities, and participants in multiple contexts, including designers in the fields of interaction and user experience design, product design, service and system design, social design, and design for policy and governance. It will also appeal to managers, public and private sector planners, engineers, and policymakers.