From a decade ago. I keep loosing track of it so wanted to archive it here.

1. Motives and Methods for
Participatory Web
Design
with At-Risk Teens
Paul Treadwell
Cornell Cooperative Extension
2002

2. What is Participatory Design?
 Participatory design represents a new approach
towards computer system design in which the people
destined to use the system play a critical role in
designing it. (Schuler,D. and Namikora,A.(1993) Participatory Design. Principals
and Practices. Erlbaum and Associates New Jersey)
 Designing with as opposed to designing for.

3. Participatory Design with Teens
 Working with teens we are given a spectrum of possible
involvement. At the midpoint of this spectrum is participatory
design. Viewed as a progression of skills and development,
however, we can set an end goal of teens as designers.

4. Paper prototyping
 Working with markers
and paper to rough out the
design of a site and pages.
 Inexpensive
 Allows the rapid
development of
alternative design
schemes

5. Youth Voices in New York
 Two diverse communities
located in New York
 One rural, Jefferson county
 One urban, Erie county

6. Designing with…the Wabasso Experience
 A one day training session
at a 4-H camp
 Kids from two starkly
different settings thrown
together in the middle of
nowhere.
 Three sessions during the
course of the day

7. The Task
•My charge: Teach them to build a project web site.
•Participants: Myself, Project staff from Jefferson and Erie Counties,
and teens from both counties.
•My Naïve Assumptions: That I could do satisfy everyone’s desires in one
day.
•The tools: Paper,markers, laptops, Dreamweaver and a few examples of
Sites designed by teens.

8. The design session
 Unrestricted design
parameters
 Mixed small groups of 4
to 5 teens working to
design a project page
 Paper based design

9. From paper to display
 The next step attempted to
convert the paper based
designs into web pages.
 Using laptops,
Dreamweaver and grim
determination the time
passed.
 During the course of this
final session success
was…elusive.

10. Problems (20/20 hindsight)
In evaluating the day’s work a number of problems
were identified, including:
 Unclear/unrealistic goal(s)
 Conflicting motives
 Not clearly knowing with whom I would be working
 Too many participants

11. Unexpected Results
 Design sessions resulted in a
usable page/site design (not
unexpected)
 Participants from erie county
realized the paper design
online (unexpected)
 Why? 2 teens from Erie
working with a staff member
after the session…mentoring

12. After Wabasso: Learning from experience
 In evaluating the camp experience a number of
shortcomings were exposed. Our work since then
has been informed and directed by the experience
gained on that day.
 Sometimes,in order to move forward, we have to
step back.
 Providing templates is not necessarily a bad thing.
 Why I do something may be quite different than
what others expect.

13. Motives
 How do we evaluate a
design session?
 3 kinds of participants
shape the session:
 Teens
 Adults (Project staff)
 Designer/Trainer
 3 different sets of motives
for participating in
sessions

14. When motives meet…
 The intersection of motives is the point of greatest
opportunity for conducting successful design/training
sessions.
 While this may seem obvious, revealing motives may not
be easy.
 Mis-matched motives may be inevitable in the beginning.
Vocabularies and understanding among or within the 3
groups may be radically different

15. Negotiating a common language
 Part of the design process involves the
development of a common language.
 This process of negotiating a common language
clarifies motives.
 Working through this process can be
uncomfortable.

16. My Motives?
 My goal in these design/training sessions is to
spark an interest, to expose teens to tools and
technologies that will allow them to articulate
their stories, dreams and visions more clearly.

17. After Wabasso part 2
 Quarterly on-site training
sessions have been established
 When necessary, templates
have been used to ease into the
on screen design.
 A survey has given a clearer
picture of what the teens want
from these sessions

18. Survey says…
 A survey of tech team members indicates that:
 More than half of the teens use a computer several
times a day (55%)
 School is the location most often used for access
 The top 3 uses/applications used are:
 Playing games
 Listening to music
 Surfing the web

19. Survey
 When asked “what would you like to learn to do
with computers” the top three choices were:
 Create and Edit video
 Create and edit pictures
 Create web pages

20. After Wabasso part 3
 The introduction of digital
photography and video is
being used as a “hook” to
capture the interest and
enthusiasm of the teens.
 Digital photography and
video can be used to
address some of the
literacy challenges we
face.

21. Digital photography
 There is a fluidity and
playfulness around digital
photography.
 A known object
(camera)
 Immediate results
 Printable and shareable
with friends

22. Fluidity, relevance and progress
 In order to be successful,we must be able to
answer and illustrate how:
 The technology relates to their (the teens) situation
 Is web design the most direct path to answering that ?

23. Fluidity,relevance and focus
 If we take self expression as immediately relevant to their
situation/experience, we can build a spectrum of focus.
 Digital photography is easily introduced and adopted.
 Web design is more demanding, but can be seen as a final
goal, integrating what is learned through the use of
photography and video.

24. What has been learned-The Big
Picture
 Introducing technology cannot be abstracted from
the social and cultural milieu.
 Technology alters relationships and makes
demands.
 Variables/factors impacting the teens experience:
 Access to technology
 Access to ‘mentors”
 Scaffolding, peer partnerships/mentoring

25. Variables/factors (continued)
 Exposure to content relevant to their situation.
 Understanding of the technology
 Playfulness
 Perceived value in what is being taught or offered

26. Defining and Measuring success
 Developing a Skills assessment tool which gives a
clear picture of where the teens are at will lead to
more realistic goal setting.
 Success can mean 3 different things during any
design session. Negotating a common goal at the
outset is essential.

27. What’s next
 During the next 12 months we will be working
more intensively with digital photography and
video as a method of drawing the tech teams into
web development.
 A skills assessment tool needs to be developed.
 Tools for collaboration will be explored and used
as skills develop.

28. Contact Information
 Paul Treadwell
 CCE Web Administrator
 CYFAR Community Project Connectivity Contact
 B09 MVR
 Cornell University
 Ithaca, New York
 14853
 pt36@cornell.edu
 http://treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/
 Discussion Board for Motives and Methods @
http://treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/youthvoices/phpBB2/index.php