Getting users’ input upfront lets you create the best possible website.
Introduction
Participatory design lets you create digital experiences that genuinely resonate with your users. By involving end users early and meaningfully in the design process, you can ensure your website accurately reflects their needs and preferences, resulting in more engaging and effective content.
What is participatory design?
Participatory design involves directly engaging users in the development of digital experiences. Rather than relying solely on the assumptions of designers or stakeholders, this approach democratises the design process by incorporating user insights from the beginning. It helps create digital products that are truly user-centred, building better experiences to deliver higher user satisfaction.
Why participatory design is vital for web projects
A new website is a major investment, especially for organisations with large and complex digital estates. Participatory design allows you to identify potential user needs or issues very early in the design process. This approach has two major benefits.
Firstly, it ensures your digital solutions genuinely reflect user experiences, leading to more meaningful and effective content. Secondly, by engaging users early, you gain fresh perspectives that challenge organisational assumptions and uncover potential issues with your approach right at the start of the project.
Catching these issues or overturning incorrect assumptions early, before you’ve proceeded to the design and build stages of the project, means major savings in the long run. Changing things later in the project, after significant investments have already been made, is expensive and wasteful.
Key elements of participatory design
Participatory design typically involves blending various user research techniques to understand and probe users' needs. This usually includes:
- User workshops: to uncover users' attitudes and pain points.
- Stakeholder workshops: to map stakeholder needs and align everyone around a unified vision.
- User interviews: to allow deeper exploration of users' motivations, frustrations and perceptions.
- Quantitative surveys: to provide data, highlight common issues, and validate workshop findings.
- Prototype testing: to quickly identify usability challenges in new designs and continually improve the user experience.
For more information and advice on running successful user research, see our article on getting started with user research projects, or check out our user insight service.
Recruiting participants
Effective participatory design requires careful selection of participants. When it comes to stakeholder workshops, anyone with significant decision-making power should be included to ensure organisational alignment and buy-in. A good rule of thumb is: if they have the power to say no, they should be involved. Otherwise, they could derail the project further down the line.
Equally important is recruiting a representative cross-section of users. You should engage current and potential users and proactively seek input from groups traditionally underrepresented or difficult to reach. You might need to run a campaign or partner with an organisation closer to that user group to reach the people you need to speak to.
Leveraging existing organisational events or community engagements can be an effective way to attract authentic participants. For higher education websites, we find events like open days are ideal for speaking to prospective students—a key user group who can otherwise be hard to reach. Think about if your target audiences ever ‘get together’ for any events, either in-person or digitally. Getting involved with these events could be the perfect way to reach the users you need to speak to. Forums or online communities can also be a useful starting point.
Encouraging active participation
It’s important to prepare in advance to get the most out of participatory design sessions.
Take time to understand who's attending, their backgrounds, and if they have any pre-existing knowledge of the site, so you can shape the session around them.
Start with informal icebreakers to help people relax and encourage honest participation. Clearly communicate from the outset what you're trying to achieve and why participants' input matters. This approach makes it easier for people to get involved and openly share their ideas.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
If you’re not careful, participatory design can inadvertently lead to "design by committee," where conflicting feedback may overwhelm the design team's ability to create a powerful, purposeful design.
To mitigate this, focus on identifying underlying user issues rather than asking participants for direct solutions. Remember, users are experts in their own experiences, not in UX design.
Integrating participatory design with analytics data
Participatory design techniques help identify user challenges and support better solutions by integrating findings into final designs.
When designing something new, it’s also important to learn from what is and isn’t working on your existing website. That’s where analytics data comes in. Analytics can pinpoint problem areas for further investigation or support your findings with concrete data.
When seeking stakeholder buy-in for changes based on user workshops or interviews, having analytics data from your current website can add credibility. Stakeholders might reasonably question findings from workshops, but verifiable analytics data from real users can provide compelling evidence for your proposals.
Implementing your findings
Insights from participatory design should directly inform your website's information architecture and content model, guiding both the site’s structure and content creation. Participatory design can also influence visual design elements and how your brand is applied, although here, it’s usually best to rely on the aesthetic instincts of skilled designers. That helps you stick to a clear vision rather than dilute your brand.
Done right, participatory design enables you to create the most effective possible website for your users, resulting in a better experience for them, and better results for your organisation.
For support in implementing participatory design in your next project, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at [email protected].
